The tsunami that has been approaching Australia has finally come ashore and it now wobbles and stumbles through our schools, shopping malls and suburbs. This tsunami is obesity and it now poses a great threat to Australian society. We are told that 60 per cent of Australians are obese and Townsville, where I live, has the nation’s largest increase in obesity rates. The figure of 68 per cent in the US is – quite literally – staggering.

I first went to PNG in 1960 and in those days the Tok Pisin words ‘stik masis’ – ‘stick matches’, generally described the physique of the peoples of PNG, Australia and the Philippines which I first visited in 1979. Today, obesity is everywhere in Australia, PNG and even in the once lean and hungry Philippines, it is a blot on the landscape where Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried, Hungry Jack’s and Maccas seem to be on everyone’s menu as well as the usual pizza places. I wonder at the many 2 litre plastic bottles of Coke in the trolleys in our shopping malls where I, with a small hand basket, have to run the gauntlet of bulging trolleys being propelled by bulging women, whose grotesque ‘tuckshop arms’ are far larger than my thighs. In the malls, the usual suspects feed their faces whilst driving their trolleys

I remember when I was fourteen in 1951 and living in Colac where my father had his medical practice – riding my bike up the main street with my .22 rifle strapped to the cross bar, on my way to the paddocks where I shot rabbits and brought them home to my mother. These were the days of making and flying model aeroplanes and catching redfin perch and yabbies in the local creeks. This was also the year I shook Bob Menzies’ hand when he came to Colac on his campaign trail.

Times have changed and walking or riding bikes to school has been replaced by being dropped off by Mum in a large four-wheel drive, her cargo spilling out replete with backpacks and furiously texting. These days, most Mums and Dads are flat out working, so our diets have radically changed, resulting in more snacking and meals on the run. The fast food chains have replaced the family kitchen/dining room, and backyard vegetable gardens are becoming things of the past. We now perve on shows like My Kitchen Rules, stuffing ourselves with huge home delivered pizzas.

We do no favours for our northern neighbours in PNG where roadside stalls sell tonnes of barbecued Australian mutton and lamb flaps, literally slabs of fat with a few streaks of red meat washed down with the dreaded Coke. Heart attacks and diabetes send many PNGeans to an early grave.

I still visit PNG but at the time of writing, am grounded in Townsville waiting for a left knee replacement, so am working under supervision at the local gym in order to keep my weight down and strengthen my upper body and thigh muscles. After my workout I venture forth to the nearby Mall to have a cup of tea and read the papers. It is there that I sit in stunned amazement and watch the passing parade. Male and female, young and old, the huge wobbling bellies and buttocks are reason for bewilderment as are the mountainous breasts, many hanging free under voluminous tank tops. Amazement turns to disbelief at the number of some of these people clad in various skin tight coloured lycra garments. Huge arms and legs mottled with swollen veins and other blemishes raise questions about life expectancy. I see many small hands, feet and facial features imprisoned inside mini-mountains of blubber, telling a sad story of homes where self-indulgent parents have thoughtlessly condemned their children to short lives. I watch the blubber brigade snacking at cafes, dipping their deep fried potato chips into jugs of glutinous gravy. True to form, the usual suspects have defended their right to flaunt their obesity, saying that ‘we feel free and beautiful in our bodies’. With curtains of fat fore and aft, one wonders how the basic acts of personal hygiene can be properly performed.

Obesity is costing our society on all fronts, where hospital beds have to be larger, more nurses and hospital workers are needed to manage obese patients, ambulances have to be modified, doorways in clinics and hospitals have to be widened and at the end we need larger coffins. What is obesity costing us in the workplace where obese workers are more likely to have accidents? The cost to taxpayers is staggering and has leapt by 84 per cent in the past decade to more than $130 billion a year.

I see obese and morbidly obese soldiers and police but when will their leaders speak out? Marise Payne, where are you? I have advised the Abbott and Turnbull Governments about Fedpol Officers posted to PNG who are not allowed to carry guns nor be involved in investigation of crime. Too many of these officers are obese and I have watched them have long lunches in a Moresby Chinese restaurant and playing cards at the Yacht Club. They are on very generous salaries and allowances and are happy to stay in PNG, costing Aussie taxpayers in excess of A$45 million per year. How on earth do we justify their posting to PNG? The same applies to many DFAT personnel stationed in Port Moresby.

Senior Police and Army brass these days seem more concerned with the role of trans genders in their forces. I watch question time in Canberra and note the pudgy faces but no leader dares challenge the fatties on the benches. Where is the medical profession on what is now a national crisis? The veering to the Left by the AMA answers this question. Visit a hospital and see all the obese people employed as nurses and other health workers. Our obese children are taught by many obese teachers and watching them at the end of the school day wobbling their way onto buses or waiting for their Mums to pick them up, provide sobering images. The day is coming when obesity will be listed as a ‘disease’ and calling someone a ‘fatty’ will be ‘offensive’ and punishable. Our MPs are the only ones who can stand up and acknowledge this national disaster and organise a response. But don’t hold your breath. Fat chance.

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