That’s unless we put an upfront price on the damage – a tax on sugary drinks would be a good start. Why? Because sugary drinks make up nearly one-quarter of our daily added sugar intake – more than any other major types of food. Sugary drinks are also especially harmful because they’re often sunk quickly, cause rapid spikes in blood glucose and insulin, and don’t do much to make people feel full.
Breadon suggests a tiered tax in which drinks with the most sugar would be slugged 60¢ per litre, while low-sugar drinks would face no tax – along with one year’s notice to give manufacturers time to change their recipes.
AMA modelling suggests that a sugar tax could cut consumption of sugary drinks by as much as 30 per cent by 2025-26.Credit: AP
It’s not an immediate fix for our health problems, but there are promising signs already. More than 100 countries, including Britain, France and Portugal, have sugary drink taxes in place – and they are working.
They make people less thirsty for sugary drinks and they prod manufacturers to pour less sugar into their drinks. Four years after Britain introduced a sugary drinks tax, just one in 12 products had more than eight grams of sugar in every 100 millilitres of liquid – down from one in three before the tax. There have also been studies that show sugary drinks taxes have trimmed obesity among girls, reduced dental decay and cut the number of children having teeth taken out in hospital.
Breadon and his colleagues at Grattan estimate their proposed tax for Australia would reduce the amount of sugary drinks we consume by about 275 million litres a year – enough to fill 110 Olympic swimming pools.
Health Minister Mark Butler has no plans for a sugar tax.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
It would mean Australians would ingest nearly three-quarters of a kilogram less sugar each year thanks to manufacturers cutting down their sugar use and consumers opting for the cheaper option: low or no sugar drinks.
Disadvantaged Australians, who are the hardest hit by obesity, would be the biggest winners, Breadon says. And the financial drain on households and the wider industry, including sugar farmers, would be fairly small given about 85 per cent of Australia’s raw sugar is exported.
While the main goal of a sugary drinks tax would be to improve our health, it would also benefit the government’s bottom line (which has suffered in recent years as tax revenue from tobacco has plummeted). If introduced today, Grattan estimates, the sugary drinks tax would raise nearly $500 million in the first year, while also generating savings by reducing the demand for healthcare.
While the government has been helping Australians living with diabetes, including through listing new insulin injections, such as Fiasp, on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Health Minister Mark Butler has no plans for a sugar tax.
Shadow Health Minister Anne Ruston has said the Coalition also doesn’t support a sugar tax, saying there were better ways to encourage healthy eating and preventive health, without hurting the hip pockets of families.
While there needs to be other preventive measures in place, such as stronger labelling regulations, a tax on sugary drinks is the cheapest and easiest to implement. The government’s new year resolutions should include the boldness to consider a sugar tax, rather than kicking the drink can down the road.
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