Celebrity personal trainer Michelle Bridges has spoken out against assistant Health Minister, Fiona Nash and her ex chief of staff Alistair Furnival’s involvement in the pulling of the Health Star Rating website, stating that the junk food industry has a ‘disproportionate’ influence in Canberra.
Bridges urged readers of her Sunday Life column to voice their concerns to prime minister Tony Abbott, and throw their support behind the Health Star Rating initiative.
“We still don’t have a coherent food-labelling system or a website to inform consumers about healthy food choices,” she wrote. “Listen up, Canberra. We’re sick of – and getting sick from – Big Junk having a disproportionate influence on our health and that of our kids.”
Last month, the Health Star Rating website (which was developed to complement the new labelling system to be released later in the year) was pulled down only eight hours after it was officially launched. Health department officials initially claimed that the website was a ‘draft’ and that it was ‘made live inadvertently’, however it was later revealed that Nash's chief of staff Alistair Furnival – who is a co-owner of his wife’s lobbying firm Australian Public Affairs – ordered health officials to pull the site down.
In her column, Bridges pointed out that federal treasurer, Joe Hockey together with federal health minister Peter Dutton have been telling the public that Australia is running out of money to pay for public health care due to rising medical costs, yet they are doing nothing about it.
“One of the reasons the bills are piling up is because our collective body weight is piling up, too. Obesity, with its bulging accompanying suitcase of ailments such as type 2 diabetes, is one of the main reasons the Medicare budget is strained beyond capacity,” Bridges wrote.
Last week, Dr Steve Hambleton, president of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) also raised his concerns of the food industry’s influence in Canberra by calling for peak body of the industry, the Australian Food and Grocery Council to stop 'undermining' the system which he says is “a bold initiative that will help people make healthier food choices and take some pressure off the health Budget.”