Borrowing from our own every so colorful slang, British cooking sensation Jamie Oliver has urged Australia to “pull its finger out” and adopt a ‘sugar tax’ on soft drinks to help fight childhood obesity.
The call comes after Britain’s Finance Minister George Osborne announced a similar tax on drinks with more than five milligrams of sugar per 100 millilitres. Coming into effect in two years time, the tax was announced as part of Osborne’s annual budget statement.
“We all know one of the biggest contributors to childhood obesity is sugary drinks,” he said.
“I am not prepared to look back at my time here in this parliament, doing this job and say to my children’s generation, ‘I’m sorry. We knew there was a problem with sugary drinks. We knew it caused disease but we ducked the difficult decisions’.”
Oliver, who had lobbied tirelessly for such a tax, was overjoyed at the surprise announcement.
Taking to Facebook, he posted a heartfelt video calling the tax “a profound move that will ripple around the world”.
Going on he urged other nations to follow Britain’s lead, including Australia. “It’s about time your governments got on this,” he said. “Australia, pull your finger out.”
The food revolution is underwayThe food revolution is underway. This feels like a victory for Britain's children and for everyone who has campaigned so hard for a tax on sugary sweetened drinks. I would love the money to go to food education as well as sport but I think we have to applaud the Chancellor for taking this extremely important, bold step. I hope that this bravery will continue to form a part of this Government's attitude to dealing with obesity and will influence the Prime Minister's Childhood Obesity strategy later in the year.
Posted by Jamie Oliver on Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Estimated to raise over half a million pounds or around 950 million Australian Dollars, Australian Greens leader Richard Di Natale called the levy a "really interesting proposal", and asked: "Why can't we have a tax, that we know what it does is discourage unhealthy choices from people, and that money could be reinvested back into the health system?"
While official data from last year showed 61.9 per cent of British adults and 28 per cent of children (2 - 15 years old) were obese, in Australia the figures are just as bad at 63 per cent of adults and 25 per cent of children.
Acknowledging the price rise might be (ahem, will most definitely be) passed on to the consumer, Osborne made clear that the funds raised would be spent on funding school sport.
Not wanting to antagonise the private sector though, he was hopeful the two year delay in implementation would "give companies plenty of time to change their product mix".
"The challenge now will be whether the large soft drinks manufacturers will reform the contents of their products, rather than simply raising prices," said Professor of marketing at the University of Birmingham Isabelle Szmigin.
While some may see the move as a radical restriction of business, this is hardly the only such tax currently in effect. Finland has had a similar levy since the 1940s, while France and Mexico in 2013 introduced their own in 2012 and 2013 respectively. South Africa is even looking at introducing one next year.
Still, other than Di Natale's comments the Australian political world seems to have greeted Oliver's challenge with stony faced silence.
