AACS CEO on radio commenting on the Sugar tax speculation

Transcript
Station: ABC NewsRadio
Date: 20/02/2017
Program: Mornings
Time: 10:46 AM
Compere: GLEN BARTHOLOMEW
Summary ID: X00069420012
Item: Interview with Jeff Rogut, head, Australian Association of Convenience Stores, about a tax on sugary drinks.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: A tax on sugary drinks is back in focus this morning as a way of combating Australia’s obesity epidemic. It’s one of a number of measures being put forward in a 47-point national nutrition policy formulated by Victoria’s Deakin University and a coalition of 53 health promotion groups. At the same time one of Australia’s leading experts on preventing obesity has penned a paper in the latest Medical Journal of Australia, arguing attacks on sugary drinks is just as logical as existing government controls on alcohol and tobacco. But not everyone agrees. Let’s meet the head of the Australian Convenience Store Association [sic], Jeff Rogut, who joins us now. Good morning to you.
JEFF ROGUT: Good morning Glen. Good to be with you.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: Do you support this idea?
JEFF ROGUT: No, absolutely not, and consumers don’t support the idea. Just to put it in perspective Glen we did a survey late last year on a number of issues affecting our industry either positively or negatively. And one of the questions we did raise because it’s obviously been in the media, is what would they think about a sugar tax. Surprise, surprise, less than 30 per cent of consumers supported a sugar tax. They had real concerns about it because it just hasn’t been proven to work anywhere at all.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: But what are some of those concerns? Is it simply that they think listen, that sounds like I’m going to end up shelling out more money?
JEFF ROGUT: That certainly is part of it. The first one is they were certainly concerned about potential job losses in manufacturing, in retail and certainly the sugar industry which I thought was quite interesting. They also said if retailers became unviable because of the products they sell contained a tax, that would be a concern. The biggest concern of all were in the cost to the household budget and also the fact that if these taxes were applied, is at the thin edge of the wedge and suddenly it is the tax on everything sugar that is consumed or bought. I think a very good- and you raised the point about one of the researchers who mentioned tobacco Glen, one of the issues that our industry and anybody that sells tobacco which is a legal product, is facing, there’s the huge growth of illicit tobacco. That has grown exponentially since the excise was increased to the degree that it has been and the fact that supposedly plain packaging was going to decrease smoking rates has been proven to be a fallacy, plain packaging of itself has done nothing to reduce rates of smoking.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: I think I just saw just in the last half an hour or so a media conference revealing just a sample of how much illegal tobacco product has been picked up in recent times. Back to the sugar front…
JEFF ROGUT: Sure.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: The suggestion is at the moment isn’t it that already behaviour is changing, that people are moving away from those regular sugar soft drinks that you and I might have grown up with. In the past 15 years or so people are already self selecting towards the more healthier products so to speak.
JEFF ROGUT:                         Very much so. And we’ve seen that reflected in our industry. Our stores and many other retailers have been innovative in terms of changing their mix. But carbonated soft drinks, the traditional sugar drinks are actually flat and to some degree in decline. The biggest growth areas that we see are things such as water, coffee, iced coffee – so this is a milk based product, iced coffee a huge seller in convenience stores. So people are aware of some of the issues. And again it goes back to our point where we really believe in education rather than regulation. We can’t tax our way to good health. Denmark tried this in 2011. In 2012 they scrapped the tax. It was absolutely hated by their citizens. There is no where that it’s proven that a tax and particularly on one subset of the food group is going to change obesity. It just seems crazy at this point.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: How much do health considerations come in to what products your members decide to stock and sell to the extent it does it all?
JEFF ROGUT: Look increasingly it’s becoming more and more important. We don’t sell products obviously that people don’t want to buy. So the mix of the products in the stores you’re changing dramatically and you only have to look at some of the new modern upgraded convenience stores and look at the ranges of beverages, look at the ranges of water, healthier drinks. Fresh fruit, fruit snacks, nuts, popcorn, all the things that people are asking for our industry certainly is reacting to and adapting to. Now certainly we still sell sugar beverages, energy drinks, tobacco and whatever else it is because that’s what people demand and expect to find in a convenience store. But the mix of sales in the stores is changing dramatically.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: I think I saw one of the major supermarket chains or both of them perhaps reveal that that was the biggest fall almost in recent times, a 23 per cent drop I think [indistinct] I remember being stunned by just how much the sales of those sort of products have disappeared. But we do have others. The Grattan Institute for example saying that about 10 per cent of our obesity problem is due to these sugar filled drinks and that obesity effectively costs us $5.3 billion a year. Shouldn’t we be doing everything we can to address that?
JEFF ROGUT: Look we should be but I think we should be starting at an earlier age educating kids in terms of what is healthy, educating parents where they don’t know what is healthy and leaving that choice up to the parents. You know we just seem to be walking away from personal responsibility and leaving it all to health lobbyists and so-called experts. They are not always right and I think parents really do have the end say in terms of what it is they do for their kids and how they bring them up. It shouldn’t be the state, it shouldn’t be regulators.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: Jeff Rogut, we’ll leave it.
JEFF ROGUT: My pleasure. Thank you Glen.
GLEN BARTHOLOMEW: The head of the Australian Convenience Store Association saying wrong way, go back, that a sugar tax isn’t the best way forward. What do you think? It’s the subject of our Web Poll question today at ABC.net.au/newsradio. Would you start drinking water more regularly if such sugary drinks were taxed? Would it shift your behaviour, yes or no? You tell us at ABC.net.au/newsradio.