The Australian government won’t support the introduction of a tax on sugary soft drinks, despite calls from the Australian Medical Association (AMA) to tax the beverages “as a matter of priority”.
Ireland, the UK, Estonia and South Africa are among the countries that are set to tax sugary drinks this year in a bid to reduce obesity and public health problems.
However, a spokesman for Australian health minister Greg Hunt said: “We do not support a new tax on sugar to address this issue. Unlike the Labor party, we don’t believe increasing the family grocery bill at the supermarket is the answer to this challenge.”
He said the government had already taken action by supporting voluntary measures to restrict food marketing to children.
The AMA believes the government should consider the full range of measures available to them to support improved nutrition, “from increased nutrition education and food literacy programmes through to mandatory food fortification, price signals to influence consumption, and restrictions on food and beverage advertising to children”.
AMA president Michael Gannon said: “Eating habits and attitudes start early, and if we can establish healthy habits from the start, it is much more likely that they will continue throughout adolescence and into adulthood.
“The AMA is alarmed by the continued, targeted marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks to children.”
Both the AMA and the Australian Beverages Council (ABC) – which is against the proposed soft drinks tax – point to Mexico as an example of the effects of such a levy.
The North American country introduced an excise tax in early 2014. Mexico’s National Intritute of Public Health found that soft drinks purchases fell by 5.5% in 2014.
ABC CEO Geoff Parker said: “The Mexico tax, often billed as a success, has had no impact on obesity rates. In fact, a recent government survey showed obesity rates were rising, particularly in women. Mexican treasury data collecting the tax from the sales shows an initial dip in consumption in the first year of the tax, with sales rebounding year after year since.”
He added: “It’s disappointing that in 2018 with both the (Australian) government and opposition rejecting the idea, that the AMA continues to promulgate a tax as a solution to the nation’s expanding waistline. This type of measure lacks any evidence anywhere in the world that it has any discernible impact on public health.”
In Ireland and the UK, the new sugar tax will come into force in April. However, the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility revealed that the amount the government can expect to raise from the levy has been further reduced by £105 million to £275 million.
The UK’s sugar tax was announced in 2016 as a means of raising £520 million through two tax bands – one for sugar content above 5g/100ml and a second higher band for sugar content above 8g/100ml.
However, in the spring Budget last year, the government lowered its estimate of the value of the tax to £380 million because producers already began reformulating sugar out of their drinks.
Last October, Cook County in the US repealed what was the largest soda tax in the US, just two months after it was introduced, following a multimillion-dollar media battle between public health groups and the soda industry.
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