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With more pressure on all forms of transport, it’s great to see the police booking motorcycles using the bicycle lane in Melbourne this morning.

While it’s great to see people using motorbikes rather than cars, there has to be a common sense approach to motorbike riders using the bicycle lanes to avoid the traffic congestion.

It is extremely dangerous to cyclists when 150-300kg of metal is hurtling in and out of the cycling lane, at times narrowly missing the bicycle commuters.

If we are to encourage people to adopt bicycle usage over using their cars, it has to be safe.

The real solution is to introduce the Copenhagen style bicycle lanes which is what is proposed by the City Of Melbourne for the new Swanston St redevelopment.

Are Junk food companies developing brand loyalty towards children? With childhood obesity being a complex issue, is regulation required?
With the recent approval of McDonalds at the Royal Children Hospital, is creating brand awareness from an early age a good thing.

I like to compare it to tobacco adverting in motor sport, if it had no effect on peoples decision top either change their cigarette brands or influence their decision to commence smoking why would they spend hundreds of millions of dollars placing there logo’s on the cars?

Well guess what, they ban any form of advertising in Australia yet junk food is ok to be promoted unregulated.

Today everyone from breakfast cereal companies such as Nutri-Grain which is a third sugar to McDonalds sponsoring Little athletics.
Coco Krispies made similar nutritional claims in the US.
The next strategy are branded toys and even McDonalds now has a toy whereby the children can make hamburgers in a Barbie doll style plastic kitchen.

Now we are seeing websites created by the big multi nationals with web based games show casing planety of company logo’s and product images.

So why do junk food companies do it?
*Brand awareness
*Creates associations with a particular event or activity
*Creates a relationships with the parents
*Influencing children at an age where they lack the ability to make healthy food and beverage decisions.

Ultimately you can argue that the parents have the final say or control the money to purchase these products but the same can be said for cigarette advertising.
Ultimately it makes it harder for responsible parents to take control of there children’s health.

The latest Government Preventative Health Taskforce document targeting obesity and Diabetes make recommendations to phase out junk food advertising before pm and banning junk food toy competition promotions.
The only issue is the voluntary nature of this report, once again leaving it to the socially responsible corporations to follow the guidelines.
Unfortunately self regulation hasn’t worked as was experienced by Coke last year.

So will the junk food companies adopt a more responsible approach when developing their brand loyalty towards children

Fingers crossed it passes through the Senate. With binge drinking out of control, any initiative to curb consumption is definitely a move in the right direction.

With our constant consumption comes the need to eventually pay for what we consume, mortgages, car loans, personal loans, credit cards, store credit, more clothes, electrical stuff or anything for that matter requires money and lots more of it.
Throw the threat of looming higher unemployment and the result is more work & less play.
If you layed out the average house contents from 2009 compared to 1959, how much more stuff do you think the average person/household now consumes or stockpiles??

In recognition of the negative impacts this is having not only in the work place but for society in general, the Australain Government has released a new initiative called “No leave, No life”
Are you guilty of too much work & not enough play???

After a Melbourne cyclist was killed on the 18th September last year and amongst constant pressure, the City of Melbourne are dragging their feet on the issue of removing the buses from Swanston Street Melbourne.
Former Councilor Ng said the council had been aware of the problem of buses along Swanston St jostling for space with trams, cyclists and pedestrians and it had a plan to move them.
From mid-2009, the council would force tourist buses to park next to the second Southern Cross tower in Bourke St, near the corner of Exhibition St.
She said buses overstaying the 15-minute parking limit had also been a problem and inspectors had conducted a crackdown earlier this year.
“We have been aware of the problem for a while and that’s why we adopted the bus relocation plan,” she said.

Maybe the Minster for Transport and the Mayor of the City of Melbourne can ride a bicycle into the city along St Kilda Rd from the south to Carlton in the north for a month during peak hour and share their experiences with the public.