kakariki

Last week I went to the Highpoint Shopping Centre with a couple of friends from out of town as they were keen to check out the new Indiana Jones movie. While they were at the cinema I decided to scout around and pick up a few things I needed.

After a couple of hours, I decided it was time for a break and I looked to find somewhere I could sit down and let my 15 month old out of the pram for a stretch and a crawl around.

But do you think I could find anywhere to do this?

One would think in a shopping centre the size of Highpoint there would be one area where our little ones could get out for a bit.  But there is absolutely nothing.  I went into one store that had a very small play pen with a handful of plastic toys in it.  And there are a few kiddie rides around (two that I saw were out of order…) but nowhere for wee ones to crawl around.

I asked a couple of the security staff if they knew of anywhere and they couldn’t come up with anything either.

Given the numbers of mothers who use this complex you would think that they would’ve thought about this when designing the complex.  I know of lots of other shopping centres that have a run around place for small kids.  But not Highpoint.  There is a video game centre called Play time (or something like that) but they don’t have anything for little ones either.

And don’t even get me started on the lack of lifts for prams to get around…

I think it should be part of planning permits for all future shopping centres to include a safe and secure play area for parents to allow their kids out of the pram for a break.  And it should be free.  It’s the least they should do given the enormous profits these megamalls make at the expense of our small community shopping strips.

When you become a parent you always become a bit more conscious about the food we eat and what you’re putting into our kids.  So I was dismayed to find out that the Victorian Government is allowing genetically modified food to be planted and let into our environment with such minimal testing and safety regulations.

It appears to me (and I’ve done a lot of personal research on these issues) that the government is relying on research results from the industry to say that this food is safe to eat.  There has been no independent research in Australia about the effects of GMOs in our environment, none!  And the only research that has been done about the safety of GMOs as a food has been short food trials on rats and none of these have been intergenerational.

Given that the bottom line of the industry is profit and not the safety of our public and our environment, surely we shouldn’t be relying on their word?

Our politicians seem to be remarkably eager to support this industry but they don’t seem to be asking any of the questions that we would expect them to be asking.  Like, who’s accountable if GMO crops spread into non-GMO areas?  In America, non-GMO farmers have been sued by big agro-companies like Monsanto because GM crops have appeared on their farms. Which means these small farmers go bust.  What are our politicians doing to protect our farmers who chose not to plant GM crops?

And what happens if there are major health effects?  Who’s going to pay for it?  The companies?  I doubt it.

I think it’s incredible that we have such rigorous independent safety testing for pharmaceuticals yet when it comes to our food, we have limited regulations and mostly rely on industry-sponsored research.

I’m not anti-technology, far from it.  I love the fact that Victoria is producing world leading scientists and research on organic food and sustainable energy.  I am just against using our children as guinea pigs for unproven technology.