Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to talk about healthy children and healthy schools. The Active After-school Communities program was an initiative introduced by the coalition in 2005 and began with 900 primary schools participating. Three years later, in 2008, there were 3,200 primary schools participating. Concerns about childhood obesity and declining participation in physical education and sport were the drivers behind this popular initiative. The program has been very successful through partnerships with the local community to create sustainable programs that encourage lifelong participation in structured physical activity.

As recently as July 2009 a new national campaign, Turn to Sport for Good Health, was launched in partnership with Diabetes Australia. This campaign will reach around 150,000 schoolchildren and will promote the benefits of a healthy and active lifestyle while raising awareness of the prevalence of diabetes. I will be visiting schools such as Cattai and others and I am very pleased to support and encourage schools in my electorate to participate in this program. The regional coordinator for Active After-school Communities, Chris Tate, does a superb job and is always looking for coaches for schools in the region. Opportunities are offered across a range of activities including sport, dance and martial arts and even frisbee throwing and circus skills. All this is done in a structured, safe and supervised physical activity program between 3 pm and 5.30 pm. Turn to Sport and Play for Life is a theme that encourages a healthy lifestyle and, ultimately, healthy children.

I turn now to another issue, and that is healthy schools, by which I mean schools that receive funding to spend in the way they think best, not on unwanted assembly halls to provide photo opportunities for a minister. The perfect example of healthy schools is in the area in which the coalition’s Investing in Our Schools Program was running. That program was started in 2005 and saw total funding of $1.2 billion invested in a range of projects: classroom improvements, library resources, outdoor shade structures, playing fields, floor coverings and so on. The program reflected the priorities identified by school communities, parents, friends, citizens, teachers and students. Consultation with the school communities was real and relevant and was actually responded to. There is a great difference between the coalition and the current Labor government. The coalition designed programs that met the needs and responded to schools, whereas the Labor government have designed programs that, in my view, make photo opportunities to meet the needs of their ministers and their members. The school communities are calling on the government to respond to their needs. (Time expired)