Graham Richardson: Why Australia needs a sugar tax

Sugar is thrust at us in every new advertising blitz or promotion.

While both sides of politics engage in a bidding war over health and Medicare, we know how easy it is to promise new hospitals. Naturally, as the population ages, those new hospitals will be welcome but why is it that we fail to spend money or even engage in a debate about how we could limit the number of our citizens using them — using good policy. As an election approaches there will be a conspiracy of silence of what to do about the biggest single reason we get sick — sugar consumption. Childhood obesity and diabetes are rising at a frightening rate while those who govern us stay mute for fear of offending the masses. Despite the extraordinary sums the sugar industry spends to challenge any move against them, a sugar tax in Britain is working.

The stumbling block for our two sides of politics is announcing anything like a sugar tax when an election will be held in the next six months. This is particularly so for Labor because those with the highest consumption of soft drinks and junk food are those at the bottom end of the income scale — i.e. Labor’s base vote. It is certainly true that a sugar tax would be a big burden on them but if it reduces diabetes and improves health outcomes you can bet your bottom dollar it will be worth it. Big Sugar will fight this tooth and nail and its millions are always within reach should Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition leader Bill Shorten suffer an sudden and unexpected attack of courage.

Of course sugar is thrust at us in every new advertising blitz or promotion. The specials at the likes of McDonalds, Hungry Jacks and KFC, always involve a bottle or a can or a very large container of Coca Cola. These hamburger chains with an outlet on every corner could try to lessen our reliance on Coca Cola or Fanta but more sugar means more profits and greed wins over altruism every single time. These days sugar is poured into the likes of yoghurt and lite milk to make them more palatable. We all ingest additional and unneeded sugar every day without having a clue about it because sugar can be hidden under a welter of pseudonyms.

In fact at the last count there were 42 ways to name sugar. Consumers have little chance of working out how much sugar they are taking because our labelling system allows Big Sugar to get away with white murder. This is now so important that we should forget about strict adherence to the metric system. I read a brilliant piece in the Courier-Mail a week ago which suggested that companies be forced to list the number of teaspoons of sugar contained in their product. While half the population has no idea what a millilitre is everyone knows what a teaspoon is as we use them every day.

Sir Humphrey would advise his Minister that taking on sugar consumption would be “courageous”. This was code for telling the Minister his course of action was risky and could come back at him. For this reason, and because an election is in the offing, there is only one way anything will ever be done about this. The one element almost totally lacking in Australian politics is bipartisanship.

Unless the Coalition and Labor get together in the national interest our rates of diabetes and heart disease will continue to skyrocket. The AMA has been too inclined to be silent on an issue they should be shouting from the rooftops. If we are to clean this mess up a mighty coalition must be built — but I see no sign of this happening.