Page 3292 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 21 August 2019
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I also note that plant-based protein sources are farmed using intensive agriculture which has significant environmental impacts as well. I think we need to consider those as a concern that we have not quite got over with regard to that food production as well. Our schools already provide healthy options heavily weighted towards food and vegetables, and the government will continue to encourage them to use resources which promote the Australian guide to healthy eating.
Mr Rattenbury’s speech clearly articulated Ms Le Couteur’s intentions with regard to this motion, but I can say the Education Directorate is ensuring that school students study the Australian curriculum subjects of health and wellbeing and food technology. Supporting increased food gardens as well as school canteens providing plant-based food options—all this already occurs in our public schools.
I tend to agree with Mr Rattenbury’s idea—and I see that promoted around the place—to move to a vegetarian meal a week and move to having different choices and different options. I think that is a good way to start. But that is where it should be. That should be the start. I think that is something that the government could promote in a different kind of way.
Our schools already do great stuff in promoting healthy eating and providing vegetables and fruit for students and in making sure that they have those choices and that they are being encouraged to make, which is not always easy with teenagers, the right choice and the healthier choice when it comes to food options in their schools.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (4.21): Isn’t it wonderful when we get into this room and most of us agree? Most of us are on the same page here—most of us, not all of us. I will not be supporting Ms Le Couteur’s motion. I think that Ms Le Couteur’s heart is in the right place here, as is often the case, but a number of the things that are being suggested are impractical. I do understand that Ms Le Couteur’s motion—I think it is probably something that has been misunderstood—would not force anybody to eat a vegan meal. That is probably the thing that has been most misunderstood with this motion.
I still cannot support the motion, for a number of reasons. If there were parts of this motion that the Canberra Liberals would support, and I am not going to suggest which ones they would be, I can tell you that they would not include that Canberra Health Services change the default meal in hospitals to be plant-based. That for us, was an absolute killer when assessing this. More than anything, when I assessed this motion, as is the case with many motions that come to this chamber, I found that I am just not sure that it really is the business of this chamber to be advising the citizens of Canberra in this rather heavy-handed way on what they are doing. I cannot support this one; I am sorry.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (4.23), in reply: I have been very surprised at some of these remarks. There seems to be a wilful misinterpretation of what I wrote. There was nothing that I wrote which would suggest that anybody anywhere was going to be forced to eat a plant-based meal or that that would be the only alternative available to them. I do not know why people have done it, but it is straight out misinterpretation.
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