Kedgley Sue: Financial Review Debate — Procedure In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Financial Review Debate — Procedure In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:616;Page:11876] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to talk about two issues in the health report: nursing and effects on children’s health of foods high in sugar and fat which the committee addressed itself to. Of course that is highly relevant because only today the Hawke’s Bay study by paediatricians was released. It was a study of 9000 young New Zealanders in the Hawke’s Bay and it confirmed that the number of children in New Zealand who are obese has trebled over the last 11 years. We almost have to say that quickly because it is hard to believe. All the experts say: “What does that mean? That means that we will have an epidemic of a whole lot of chronic dietary-related diseases and an epidemic of diabetes.” 
People have described the situation as a health time-bomb and so on and so forth. So given the enormous obesity epidemic and the way that it is increasing in New Zealand what is the Government doing about it? Well the Government has issued a strategy a Healthy Eating - Healthy Action strategy. But while the strategy is very good on words it is very short on action. In fact we have strategies and studies coming out of our ears but to date we have had almost no action. 
When we look at the issue of schools just as an example surely we should not be selling or promoting unhealthy food in our schools. But what the report unfortunately had to acknowledge was that we have nothing even as simple as nutrition guidelines in place in our schools. We do not have any nationwide guidelines for all schools on promoting healthy food. We do not even have guidelines on for example the use of vending machines in schools. We know that vending machines that sell high-sugar drinks are basically normalising unhealthy food and encouraging our children to consume unhealthy fizzy drinks in our schools. Why on earth would we allow that? Why would our Government not take decisive leadership and action on this important issue and issue guidelines that all schools are required to follow saying that schools may not have vending machines that sell fizzy high-sugar drinks? That is a very very simple thing. 
Another simple thing is the fact that most children’s nutrition education occurs while they are watching advertisements on television for unhealthy junk food. It is a very simple matter. The Government in 1999 said that it was going to look at eliminating the advertising of unhealthy foods during children’s programmes. What has it done? The Minister said today that the Government has no intention now of honouring that pledge it made in 1999 to eliminate the advertising of unhealthy food during children’s television. The fact of the matter is that there is no point in issuing strategies like Healthy Eating - Healthy Action if we are not going to do the most obvious common-sense things to try to reduce the obesity epidemic such as by improving the food our children eat and by encouraging them to understand what healthy food is. 
In England there is the Food Standards Agency which by contrast has issued far-reaching proposals on this issue. It is for example developing guidelines for the entire food industry and is calling on the industry to reduce the amounts of fat salt and sugar in food products aimed at children. It is going to publish for consumers the results on any foods that do not meet its guidelines so that people know immediately from what is on the label that a food is one that people should not be buying for their children. 
Why are we not doing that? Where is the leadership on this issue? Why is the Government not meeting with manufacturers? Why is the Government not calling on manufacturers to do their bit—all of us have to do our bit but that includes the manufacturers—to reduce the salt sugar and fat levels in food that they relentlessly target at children?