Page 2137 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
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Also, as a direct result of the parliamentary agreement, we have seen the installation of drinking fountains in key public locations such as town centres, sporting fields, hospitals and schools, and at public events, to encourage people to drink water while out and about and while exercising, instead of drinking soft drinks. Thirty of these fountains are being rolled out across Canberra, and there are more to come. I went to the launch of the very first one, over at Harrison district playing fields, just a couple of weeks ago. We had a bunch of school kids with us there. They certainly were attracted to them; they are a great design. I know that since we announced the locations of the ones that are already funded, I have had a lot more requests from people who have got places around the city where they would like to see the fountains available. They are great because they are not only a bubbler but also have taps on them so that you can refill a re-useable bottle. So hopefully, we will see some reduction in the use of throwaway plastic containers there as well.
The Greens have long argued that preventive health is an investment that pays high dividends for people, the community and the health system. I agree with Dr Bourke that it is important that the government continues to implement policies and programs across government that help our community to recognise the health and lifestyle impacts associated with being overweight, that assist people at risk to manage their weight through diet and activity, and that support the public obesity management service. I will be supporting Dr Bourke’s motion today.
Let me turn briefly to the amendment moved by Mr Hanson. I will not be supporting it today. We have only had it for a short amount of time, but I had a brief chat with Mr Hanson and I do not entirely disagree with him. He has moved two points. One is to emphasise programs that encourage healthy behaviours rather than restrictive interventions. On the face of it, it is agreeable text, but when I spoke to Mr Hanson, and he touched on this in his remarks, he said: “We really shouldn’t be going for the banning of things. It should be about encouraging people.”
I think that we need all of the tools in the armoury. We face an epidemic of obesity in this country. I think that is the only way to describe it; I have seen it described like that in many a place. We need every option available to us. Some of that will be about being quite proscriptive about activities and some of it will be about being encouraging. I am reluctant to go down the path of supporting text that suggests that some of those options are less valid than others, because I think they all have their place. We certainly need to keep monitoring their efficacy, but we should keep all of the options open to us.
The second point is to institute a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of weight loss surgery. Again, I do not entirely disagree with the point, but I would want to discuss the detail of it. I think the question is: should the ACT government be doing this on the relatively small scale that we have here in the ACT, and we know that many things are on a relatively small scale here in the territory, or can we rely on reports done by larger jurisdictions, done by large-scale medical research institutes? I imagine that evidence is already out there, or ACT Health would not be offering this service. In the time available to me, I have not had an opportunity to research it, to find it, but I have confidence that, in offering this service, that sort of evidence is already in place. Again, I would want to have some further discussions about what we are going to
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