The long, soul-destroying national debate has begun. Should the Commonwealth find yet another way of pick-pocketing the citizenry by taxing sugar?
Predictably the Greens are behind the push, having gone to the last election with a sugar tax as part of their grab bag of feel good policies. The Greens have said they will introduce a “sugar-sweetened beverages tax” as a private members’ bill in the ongoing freak show that is the Australian Senate at some time over the next 12 months.
Barnaby Joyce was incandescent – well, more incandescent with rage at the proposal.
“People are sitting on their backsides too much, and eating too much food and not just soft drinks, eating too many chips and other food,” Barnaby said.
Perhaps inadvertently, the Deputy Prime Minister had outed himself as a hand wringer for the public good of a different kind. He’s pro-sugar but anti-fat.
Full column here.
BASSMAN:-its simple Bald. Not rocket science…everything in moderation-grog,food, except sex. I am told it is good for you and plenty of it! Hey, what an embarrassing mess The Looters are in-Mad Barnaby wasting $25 million to pork barrel his science labs to Armidale-85% of staff say they will not go;his tearing up of the Murray Darling deal agreed to by all states and even the Libs in 2012-the Liberals are furious with him;Brandis at it again-easily the most incompetent evil tentacle in the govt. And of course there is Dutts. Always Dutts. Using Dutts’ analogy, Erica Abetz would not have been allowed into Australia because his Uncle Otto was a high ranking Nazi. Has there ever been a worse government? Gross debt now $170billion more than it was at the 2013 election under Labor…all new Liberal Looter debt. Yep ‘The adults are in charge’…this is a baaaaaaaaad government.
Cut out the pork-barrelling I say. Too fatty. And you’ve got me wondering whether they do pork barrelling in Israel?
John O’Hagan 11.23am 26th
You’re barking up the wrong celery stick John, fat people don’t read food labels.
Quite right, CoTC they’d eat them if they weren’t stuck on!
Soak them in water and add BBQ sauce
Jean Baptiste and UQ:
Absolutely agree – I cut out sugar, bread and potatoes – got very lean (and mean) and feel great.
JTI:
Trouble is, letting people choose for themselves doesn’t really work. The ”hidden” sugar in foods is quite scary – for example, tomato sauce is practically pure sugar – with flavouring and colouring.. Who would have thought.
I now take the time to read the ingredients on everything I buy at the supermarket. Enlightening.
Too many fatties around Mr Insider and the culprits sugar and fat. Lets all follow that fabulous Barnaby Joyce’s simple advice to lose weight and as he says “Eat Less” how simple is that! Now that would save having to tax sugar etc. Wonderful man that Barnaby Joyce, top Aussie, a man of the People!
Barnaby always says it as it is, HB – no bullshit – I rather like him
Actually, the more controversial Barnaby gets, the redder his face gets and the closer we are to seeing him have a heart attack on camera. I understand that Johnny Depp has been sending him war parcels of Hershey bars and pop tarts just to see if he explodes.
And what of Mad Barnaby regulating to move Agricultural and Chemical agencies to his electorate for the starting price at $25 million to move then $millions more in redundancies because 85% of staff cant or don’t want to move their families then there the $155 million it will take out of the economy in Canberra and the job losses and that is before you consider the independent analysis in the Aus. Financial Review that the move could cost the Agricultural industry $193 million. This is pork barrelling at its worst. Analysis shows no value or reason to do it. Consider looking at things on the information rather than on ideological/ political grounds. Mad Barnaby is a National embarrassment. He does not tell it like it is he, tells like he thinks you want to hear it. There is a huge difference.
Dismayed – Get your head out of the clouds mate, its called decentralisation. Something that’s been sorely needed in this country for a long time. If you’re looking for ‘pork’, glance backwards and downwards over your left or right shoulder. Take your pick.
Decentralised people vote right COC
This causes dismal depression
Well surely Barnaby should follow his own advice and stop feeding his face care of the Australian tax payer…….as if.
I make my own stocks for soups etc and this recipe is one of my daughters favourites even though she’s not really into shrubbery, it has a beautiful flavor with the fresh turmeric and ginger. So if you want something “healthy” and packed full of vitamins give it a go, nice chilled too http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/alkalising-green-soup
I do most of the cooking when I am at home Tracy but Mrs Razor does our two standard stocks, Beef bone and chicken. Takes a weekend basically to brew up and freeze a heap, but we have something nice while we work away. Nothing decent starts without a good stock.
Stop fast food advertising between the hours of 15.00 and 20.00. It would not concern me at all if processed foods were subject to a tariff or tax. The chemicals, sugar, palm oil, and added fats are toxic. Buy fresh, buy Australian and enjoy creating meals that enhances family meal times. It is precious time that nourishes the body and minds of the next generations of Dismayed’s.
I imagine it would be an absolute hoot around your dinner table!
No one at my family dinner table are obese like 65% of Queenslanders or the other 23% that are overweight and at risk of becoming seriously overweight.
Well if you were to waffle on I wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly lost their appetite.
Mwaahahah – sorry, only joking. Couldn’t help meself.
I get it! You aren’t indoctrinated and follow no ideology…….
I also get that it’s a state thing……..how very very mature of you.
I think your first 7 words are correct! No one at my family dinner table.
I thought we still had the Howard tax on sugar in place anyway to prop up the Nationals mates.
That was a levy. Gone years ago.
Jack The Insider says:
November 25, 2016 at 10:53 pm
“In the end the best thing to do is give people information and let them make the choice”
In an ideal world that would be the way to go. But the food industry has put a lot of effort into coming up with addictive concoctions and avoiding disclosing the information that would put any rational person off eating the stuff.
Few people have the time, the PhD in biochemistry, or the eyesight to spend twenty minutes before each purchase deciphering tiny labels containing the absolute legal minimum of raw information and then researching what it all means. Most of us have to get in and out of the supermarket quickly.
The poorest and least educated Australians are least equipped to make informed decisions and are hit hardest by obesity problems. It’s all very well to say fat people have just made bad choices, but their condition is also the result of deliberate strategies by the food industry, and that needs regulating.
Until the day the necessary information is accessible, unmissable and honest — for example, when a can of Coke has a big sign on it saying “If you drink this you’re already over the safe sugar limit” — I don’t think a tax is a bad idea.
People are stupid so let’s tax them. Got it.
Regulation would probably do the work of any possible tax far better, though.
I still think Pigovian taxes like a sugar tax would be low-hanging fruit, figuratively speaking, that would barely tackle any real problems, leave out important categories, and probably lead a shift to even worse artificial sweeteners (and I am aware that aspartame, etc., aren’t as evil and dangerous as it’s often made out to be).
Far better labelling – except that it might get too crowded and confusing and we’d be buying more air as a result – would likely work as education, so I’d advocate that well ahead of taxation.
What? That’s completely not what I’m saying. Are you saying fat people are stupid because they eat shit, so bugger ’em? No. I’m saying the information is too hard to find and interpret, and the food industry exploits that.
If bad eating were really just a matter of personal choice, obesity would be evenly spread. It’s not, it’s concentrated in lower socio-economic groups. Whatever the reasons may be for that, it does show that people’s circumstances affect their choices in ways they don’t fully control.
IMO the tax is not about punishing consumers, it’s about encouraging manufacturers to make less sugary drinks they can sell cheaper, and encouraging people to buy them instead. IMO that’s just good public policy, and far less intrusive than directly regulating the industry.
A range of scientific opinion here:
https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/expert-reaction-uks-new-sugar-tax-will-it-work,-and-would-it-work-here
yeah, right up there with Mao, though Mao managed to kill even more people and to keep many many more people poor and tyrannised.
still fidel did his best with the numbers he had
Is that a misplaced Castro comment? Probably fair enough, they grow a lot of sugar cane in Cuba don’t they?
So, all the fatcat company execs we see in the media are from lower socio-economic groups? Except for Clive Palmer, he’s lost a bunch of weight in readiness for hard times coming ahead I guess. That would make him smart. Most of the people I know that are overweight are successful people who make a higher than average salary.
Mack:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/94FD9A5A7AA9A106CA25789C0023DB4F?opendocument
I think the outcome of election in the US and the growing support for the hansonites and people like brandis, dutton, bernardi, christensen etc etc points to your statement being correct.
Not much point in taxing the smart ones. They know all the loop holes.
Also no point in taxing anything that is unpopular – no money in it.
There could be unforeseen consequences in this tax. Sat through a lecture by a nurse once on nutrition. She was hooked on coke. Gave up Diet Coke and started drinking the real thing – lost 3 kilos.
yup dey is doin just that
JOH
Unless they can combine the tax with taxes on takeaway/ crap food and laziness then obesity levels aren’t going to change. It’s not that people are necessarily missing the info, more that they just don’t care.
Too many people consider chucking chips and a chicken kiev in the oven, coupled with takeaway 5 times a week as standard fare. It’s harder to argue against when that option is often cheaper than cooking a meal at home from scratch. But generally, people of all demographics just don’t cook at home at the levels they used to and when they do, too often from the simplest/ cheapest option – therein lies the problem.
While, Masterchef and similar have started bringing some back to the kitchen and cooking from fresh, living on their recipes is only likely to complicate things by throwing a gout epidemic in to the mix.
Personally I think (and saying this through gritted teeth), Jamie Oliver has the right idea – try drive change by promoting cheap, easy and healthy meal options, use of/ ‘re-inventing’ left overs, trying to make cooking fun and most importantly promote healthy habits and meals in kids – basically like we use to be. Using his (and other celebrities/ chefs) clout to highlight simple ideas like a free piece of fruit for kids at the supermarket or improving a school canteen menu have (IMO) more potential to lower obesity levels in the long run if properly followed through on than putting an extra 10c on a can of coke.
Jazza, I agree with you. Teaching children to eat properly is a far better way to achieve a healthy population n the long run. It’s odd that here in Malaysia, you rarely see an overweight Chinese or Indian Malay, but quite a few of the Malays themselves are. Most of the food we eat when we go out here is relatively sugar free and is either Chinese or Indian and we always order sugarless fresh fruit juice. However a lot of Malay food (delicious as it is) is full of fats, oils etc. and their teh/kopi is undrinkable because it is laden with sugar.
I am constantly reading the latest diets recommended by Pete Evans, those blokes from Masterchef, some other celebrity joker and you would literally have to have nothing else to do all day than prepare these fancy meals with kale, quinoa etc. That’s why the Jamie Oliver recipes are so good, they’re simple, quick and easy to prepare.
I know what you’re saying Penny but I have to confess an undying love for ABC and teh tarik. Not sure why as I normally hate condensed milk but anyway….
Just as well my trips to MY are less frequent nowadays.
FWIW, I’ve got a friend who’s fairly close to Jamie Oliver (as a senior employee in his group) who assures he that he’s on the level and passionate about the step change he promotes – even to the point of hosting and attending regular cooking / team building events for his non-cooking staff – all based around the simple, healthy and fresh premise.
The best stuff (except for beer) doesn’t have a label on it. No need to read. Banana’s, apples, tap water, garlic, squid, fish, carrots, gin and tonic, eggs, mushrooms etc. Anecdotal evidence (?) suggests that a major ingredient (hehe) for obesity is a sedentary lifestyle, that is sitting in front of the box. Sure there are lots of adds for kfc and other fast/junk food, but tv also offers plenty of advertisements and shows promoting a healthy lifestyle, and plenty of govt warnings on the dangers of smokes and grog. I would suggest that it is lifestyle choices rather than stupidity that leads people down the road to corpulence. Maybe we should give the Life Be In It ads another run (strangely they had the opposite effect on me as I envied Norm’s lifestyle).
On taxing stuff, I have long wondered what the govt would go after once they’ve milked smokes and grog for all their worth.
Anywho i’m off to the butchers to pick up some lean suet for dinner.
The poor don’t drive cars and the rich don’t consume sugar
JTI
Interesting bit of drum I picked up is there are ructions in the Sth African cricket team. There is a split regarding Faf. They nearly have the numbers but as usual the saffas can’t swing de Koch!
Adani’s Solar power plant in Whyalla (and that’s just the beginning apparently) will be running before the train to nowhere in Queensland.
Who knows? I don’t nor do you. I do know the Carmichael mine will get there eventually. I also know that it and the associated Abbott Point expansion will create thousands more jobs than any solar plant in Whyalla. Unlike yourself I like to see young Australians employed and with a future.
Razor, I had some meetings with Adani about Carmichael a few years back and had to prepare some proposals for them in two separate bursts. They’ve changed their minds about the whole design. They were all over the shop and it’s only gotten worse as far as I can tell. Mammary glands on a boy cow. I bet it never happens.
It’ll get there TV.
Indian company, right? I have a lot of experience with Indian companies “in this space”, as they say. They tend to be cowboys (Im being tactful there). Also wouldnt surprise me if they bring in their own staff from overseas. Thats how they tend to roll. But this one has already been a debacle. I dont think it will fly either.
JtI
I say Jack, if the Green’s proposed S-SBT is a “war against obesity” and in the slim chance it is legislated, the ectomorph community will be up in arms. That is, if you can see them.