Page 706 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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provide support and information on pertinent health issues, including drug education and alcohol and tobacco use.
Through these initiatives, teachers are provided with professional learning on best practice in teaching nutrition and physical activity. Resources are also being provided to support teachers—for example, the feat-for-feet program, where students use pedometers to measure distance and in this way are encouraged to be physical while learning. A physical activity assessment tool has also been developed for use by teachers to assess students’ fitness and to encourage students to engage in physical activity. This is currently being trialled in some schools in the ACT. To support the work in the classroom, a school canteen accreditation program has been implemented, and healthy eating guidelines for schools are being developed with ACT Health. This issue, the importance of nutrition with regard to obesity in particular, has been emphasised by all members this afternoon in this discussion. All of the programs that I have just mentioned build on the mandatory hours that schools are required to implement for physical education or sport.
The ACT government is working in cooperation with the Commonwealth Institute in the UK, under the direction of Professor Richard Telford, to conduct research into the long-term effects of nutrition and physical activity on the health of children. Through this project, additional physical activity programs are provided by trained physical education specialists twice a week to the 500 children involved in the study.
The new ACT curriculum framework will ensure physical activity and nutrition remain a key focus for schools. Specifically, the framework includes the following relevant essential learning achievements: the student takes action to promote health and wellbeing and the student is physically skilled and active. The framework includes essential content and the outcomes that students are expected to achieve for each of the four bands of development.
I can assure members that the ACT government strongly supports the importance of implementing programs to encourage healthy and active children in the ACT. As I have previously indicated, the government has committed over $1.5 million for such programs in our schools. In addition, the Department of Education and Training is working in partnership with other government agencies and non-government providers to ensure high-quality outcomes for children and young people in health and physical activity in the ACT. I thank very much Ms MacDonald for bringing this matter to us this afternoon.
Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Amendment Bill 2006
Debate resumed from 16 February 2006, on motion by Mr Hargreaves:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (4.42): The Road Transport (Alcohol and Drugs) Amendment Bill was tabled by the minister on 16 February 2006. It certainly tightens up some aspects of the current Road Transport Act related to breath analysis and the taking of blood samples for alcohol and drug testing of drivers involved in an accident. The minister tells me that the existing legislation is 30 years old and has simply not kept pace with changes in machinery. I understand that the new testing mechanisms are so much
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