Nanny state activists’ sugar tax won’t fix the flab
NANNY state activists are once again trying to control how we lead our lives by imposing a levy on all soft drinks, writes Terry Barnes.
Opinion
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IF the Australian Greens have their way, we will soon be paying an extra 20 per cent tax on every can and bottle of soft drink we enjoy.
A Greens-fixed Senate inquiry into obesity reports next month, with loaded terms of reference pushing three things: a sugar tax on soft drinks is good; governments must intervene in people’s private lives; and the food and beverage industry — so-called Big Food — is evil.
The Greens and their powerful nanny state activist allies yet again are asserting their right to control the decisions and behaviour of millions of rational Australians.
This time they want to impose a regressive, punitive tax on the less well-off to stop us getting fat.
In their patronising, “we know best” way, activists want to force us to behave.
They don’t trust us to make our own sensible, informed choices about what and how much we eat and drink.
They are also determined to finger the food and beverage industry as culpable for Australia’s obesity problem, because apparently we are dumb critters who can’t resist their siren songs.
Yes, we Australians are a fat lot and getting fatter.
We enjoy trips to Maccas, bevvies and fizzy drinks, but simply blaming Big Food for our personal choices is a total cop-out.
Those companies wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t make those choices in the first place.
The real issue is simply that we as a nation put in far more calories than we burn up.
Obesity is more than what we eat — it is what we do or don’t do.
The world in which we live, the culture we are part of, are more sedentary than any other time in mankind’s history.
We choose to spend much of our time not just eating and drinking, but enjoying activities that may exercise our minds but give our bodies little or no workout.
We are far more interested in surfing the net, watching funny cat videos, fiddling with smartphones and bingeing on Netflix than walking, playing sport or exercising outdoors.
And when we do get out, many of us cut corners.
Most golfers don’t walk the course these days lugging their clubs, but ride those convenient electric buggies.
And why take the stairs when you can take the lift?
Yet we’re told by public health activists and nanny state politicians we don’t have to accept responsibility for our choices and actions, but instead blame Big Food, Big Advertising or some other Big Whipping Boy for tempting us.
It’s easy to self-justify when you can make the consequences someone else’s fault.
Sugar taxes on soft drinks punish ordinary people.
They are passed on by manufacturers to consumers. Being regressive, they hurt the poor while the rich can afford to ignore them.
The money raised — potentially hundreds of millions of dollars a year — simply would go to the government to feed its revenue addiction.
In pushing a sugar tax, however, public health agencies and researchers call for much of that revenue windfall to go to — you guessed it — them and their pet projects.
Encouraging more exercise and physical activity, and ensuring Australians have impartial, reliable information about their dietary choices, is far better than taxing people into submission.
Using up that excess stored energy is the key to fighting obesity.
Even everyday activities like sex can help, yet studies indicate Australians are doing it less — another consequence of our less physically active, more stressful and more sedentary lives.
Instead of pushing a punitive sugar tax, the Senate inquiry could do more to combat obesity by urging adult Australians to practise more “horizontal jogging” — as well as more of the vertical kind and physical exercise in general. (And it’s way more enjoyable!)
If only know-all politicians and public health activists would change their strident and self-righteous puritan tune. Instead of enthusiastically taxing and penalising people, and banning “sinful” activities they don’t like, they should trust the rest of us to eat and drink responsibly in moderation.
Most of us use common sense if we have reliable dietary information: ensuring people have such easily understandable information is the one thing governments usefully can do in fighting obesity.
For now, the Coalition and Labor rightly oppose sugar and fat taxes.
But as nervous-nelly politicians are chronically afraid of upsetting Big Public Health, and if the price of government after the next election is Greens support, you can bet that your can of Coke will be 20 per cent fatter — in price.
Terry Barnes is a policy consultant and fellow of UK think-tank the Institute of Economic Affairs.