This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

People need to take personal responsibility for their food choices and not blame junk food giants for obesity, the head of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Michael Gannon, told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

In his inaugural address to the club since being elected as president of the association in May, Gannon was asked about the Greens proposal for a 20% tax on sugary drinks. Gannon said that while the association supported a sugar tax, it alone would not solve the obesity epidemic.

“Too often we hear about the demonisation of Coca-Cola, the demonisation of McDonald’s, when people make bad decisions about food they put in their mouth every day,” he said.

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“The fact is that they buy from supermarkets [and] eat so much processed foods full of sugar, solids and trans fats. This is the real problem. We can’t just have a simple idea that this is the one solution.”

Other measures needed in addition to a sugar tax included traffic-light labelling on foods and investing in public health campaigns to educate people about food labels and the poor nutritional value of processed foods, he said.

On Medicare, Gannon said that the government under Malcolm Turnbull had begun to acknowledge the importance of Medicare to Australians, saying Labor’s “Mediscare” campaign combined with strong advocacy from the association had turned people away from the Coalition.

“The take-home message for the government of the day is clear,” he said. “Health matters. Ignore health policy at your peril. [Turnbull] has made it clear that his government will be more consultative on health policy, including seeking a better relationship with the Australian Medical Association.

“This means no surprises, no more secret deals on new medical schools, serious investment in our doctors-in-training, serious investment in our GPs.”

Priorities for the association included seeing the Medicare freeze lifted, increases in public hospital funding, changes to bulk-billing for x-rays reversed, more action on disease prevention and strengthened measures to close the Indigenous health gap. Constitutional recognition would be an important step in closing the gap, Gannon said.

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“The Australian Medical Association recognises the progress that has been made to close the gap in health and life expectancy but doctors continue to see sadness and despair every day across the country,” he said.

“Once a month I sit in a room with a number of other experts reviewing the misery of individual cases of perinatal and infant death in WA. Aboriginality is a depressingly familiar theme when we discuss these cases. Happily we have seen a reduction in the rate of early childhood mortality but progress is slow and much more needs to be done.

“We need to urge governments to make meaningful investment in Indigenous health.”

Gannon closed his address by saying he believed the association could work constructively and productively with the government, and that it was already doing so. He also acknowledged that work needed to be done within the medical profession to address issues like bullying and sexual harassment, and poorer standards of medical care in rural and regional areas.

“We will look inwardly and get our own house in order,” he said.