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3·2 days agoOnly if they no longer buy soft drinks, which means they don’t pay the tax, which means it doesn’t raise revenue.
You seem to be assuming a binary choice in consumption, but the modelling in the study was that those numbers for dental outcomes would be produced by a 24% reduction in consumption of sugar sweetened beverages.
From the SBS article:
Assuming a 20 per cent tax is passed on in full to consumers, the study predicted the price increase would result in a 24 per cent reduction in consumption.
So there would still be tax revenue from the remaining 76% of consumption. But it’s a public health measure, just via a tax, so if it produced no revenue that would (from a public health perspective) be considered a huge success. It makes sense that the amount of revenue you raise and can spend on dental health would scale in proportion to the amount of consumption and dental harm. It’s a way of partially de-externalising the health externalities of the sugar-sweetened beverage industry.
It’s of limited imparting also note that (1 + 0.2) x (1 - 0.24) = 0.912. So with a 20% tax, modelled to reduce consumption by 24%, on average people will be spending 9% less on sugar-sweetend drinks.
Or they keep buying soft drinks, pay the tax, and end up even poorer which will increase the likelihood of further health issues.
As pointed out by @observes_depths@aussie.zone, if the revenue is directly tied to funding dental care for poorer citizens, care which someone who maintains 100% of their consumption is more likely to need, then they may end up less poor than otherwise. Not only is their tax contribution going into that funding, but revenue from wealthier consumers and those who have reduced their consumption and are less likely to need dental care.
I’ve also seen proposals where the money is spent on subsidising fresh food, so that the average weekly shop comes out to the same dollar figure even if behaviour doesn’t change, while people are doubly incentivised to make healthier choices.
The SBS article also mentions that the tax can be designed to encourage reformulation of drinks, with drinks below a certain sugar concentration exempted from the tax, as happened in the UK:
In 2018, the United Kingdom introduced a tax of 19.4 or 25.9 pence per litre, depending on the sugar content of beverages.*
It led to a 46 per cent reduction in the sugar contained in soft drinks, the UK government said, with nearly 90 per cent of the market now containing sugar below the level at which the tax applies.*
So in the UK 90% of drinks are no more expensive to the consumer, but tax-incentivised reformulation has meant sugar consumption from sweetened beverages has decreased by nearly half! (Again, revenue raising is not the aim, the tax is just a policy ‘stick’.)
The study the SBS article is about also modelled for a similar level of reformulation:
The health impact of the SSB tax is up to three times larger with 50% reformulation as compared with the base case and nearly five times with 100% reformulation.
A 300% greater health impact over the ‘base case’ (20% tax, 100% passed-on), and it’s hip-pocket neutral 90% of the time!
Your arguments can equally be applied to the tax on tobacco, but we know that applying a tax (to a point, it seems!) reduces tobacco consumption and the associated health harms, and provides revenue that makes up for the cost of tobacco-related disease to our health system.
A sugary beverages tax like the ‘base case’ (20% tax, 100% passed-on) would be similar to the tobacco tax and could be used to similar effects, but, as I hope I’ve made clear above, there’s lots of options.
2·3 days agoA powerful speech.
There’s a recording of it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XlJM5UYxCw
Increasing taxes on low income earners is only going to make them poorer and sicker.
The article is literally about how a study found a tax on sugary drinks “could prevent 3.7 million cases of tooth decay, 191,000 cases of gum disease, and 115,000 cases of complete tooth loss across Australia over the next 25 years.”
That’s people being less sick.
I’d also note that making people less sick also makes them less poor, because they don’t have to pay the cost of dental and other health care (yes, it should be free, but it’s not)
If revenue raised by the tax is used to provide services to low income earners - e.g. subsidised dental care, subsidised fresh food - then low income earners could come out ahead.
The levy as outlined in the article, as @blind3rdeye@aussie.zone pointed out, is intended to be passed on to the consumer, with the price increase causing people to consume fewer sugary drinks. If they didn’t pass it on, it would have no effect on dental health.
From the article:
Assuming a 20 per cent tax is passed on in full to consumers, the study predicted the price increase would result in a 24 per cent reduction in consumption.
However, there are ways you can design a policy like this to reduce the cost to consumers while still having an effect on dental health. In the UK, their levy is only applied to a drink “if it contains at least 5 grams (g) of sugar per 100 millilitres (ml) in its ready to drink or diluted form.” As as result, the UK soft drink industry reformulated their drinks to fall below that amount (often by partially substituting non-sugar sweeteners) so that they wouldn’t have to pay the tax at all and they wouldn’t need to pass it on to consumers or absorb it.
From the article:
In 2018, the United Kingdom introduced a tax of 19.4 or 25.9 pence per litre, depending on the sugar content of beverages.
It led to a 46 per cent reduction in the sugar contained in soft drinks, the UK government said, with nearly 90 per cent of the market now containing sugar below the level at which the tax applies.
The study (https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/4/3/e002110) actually modelled the effect of reformulation, too:
To explore the impact of possible industry responses, we also modelled product reformulation scenarios with 50% and 100% sugar reductions (and no consumer response) and 50% and 80% pass through scenarios.
The health impact of the SSB tax is up to three times larger with 50% reformulation as compared with the base case and nearly five times with 100% reformulation.
Since the UK’s policy has resulted in a 46% reformulation, we have a clear real-world template for bringing about a 50% reformulation and the health benefits that would accompany it.
Direct link to the published study: https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/4/3/e002110
But sweet, carbonated beverages (on the shelf; the refrigerated bottles are kinda expensive) are one of the last, somewhat inexpensive products in supermarkets.
That’s exactly the problem it’s intended to address. It’s cheap to buy, and expensive in its consequences.
I’ve seen it proposed that revenue from such a tax be used to subsidise fresh food, so that’s another option that would double the nudge towards healthier options while being hip-pocket-neutral for shoppers (the devil is always in the detail, of course).
Sugar is in everything, so the price of everything wil go up.
You don’t have to apply the levy to everything. The proposal the article is about is specifically “a levy applied to non-alcoholic drinks with added sugar, such as soft drinks and most juices”.
It’s not proposed as a revenue raiser, it’s intended as a public health measure.
The idea is that people buy less sugary drinks and have better dental health.
Your concerns raise a valid point, though, that revenue raised (and $1.4B isn’t nothing) should be directly funneled into new programmes that benefit the working class. The study suggests that the money go into dental and other health services, but I’ve also seen proposals for using the revenue to cross-subsidise fresh food.
Either way, the working class could see a net benefit to their bottom line from government subsidies (which benefit from efficiencies of scale) and because they’ll have less need of dental and other health services if they reduce their sugar intake.
Oh, nice! Ghost is open source and supports ActivityPub to integrate with the fediverse.
Doesn’t look like lastplaceonearth.com.au has it enabled, though
Uh oh, I’ve made an arse of myself by not watching the video first 😆
To apologise, I’ve taken the time to look into the actual person/account you were talking about 😆 ‘The Last Place On Earth’ have a website (looks to run on Substack) and a podcast.
There’s also a text article about that particular encounter (https://www.lastplaceonearth.com.au/running-polling) that was co-published with Crikey, at which point I think it’s totally fair to just call them a journalist.
Maybe ‘podcaster’ or ‘YouTuber’? The Wikipedia page labels ‘Punter’s Politics’ as a podcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punter’s_Politics
They seem to post a lot on various social media too, though, so I see where you’re coming from.
31·5 days agoGood article.
It’s beyond farcical when our government expresses support for bombing Iran and then criticises a missile test as ‘destabilising’.
I’d assume the price will be comparable to a flu vaccine, but I guess we’ll see.
I suspect that any attempts to discount for cash will be quashed, if it’s not already buried in there.
The no-surcharge rule in itself won’t prevent discounts for cash:
Can businesses offer discounts on other payment methods?
Yes. Businesses can continue to offer discounts for particular payment methods. Businesses should consult their payment service provider and the ACCC guidance on appropriate pricing displays.
Removing the RBA’s prohibition on ‘no-surcharge’ rules is not intended to prevent discounts being offered to consumers for using certain payment methods.
Good article here on trends that answers some of your questions: https://theconversation.com/why-cash-has-made-an-unexpected-comeback-in-australia-new-study-281029
After two decades of declining cash use, Australians are handing over more banknotes and coins for regular purchases again, a new survey by the Reserve Bank has found.
The decline in the use of physical money had accelerated during the COVID pandemic, but bottomed out between 2022 and 2025.
One decision that may stabilise the use of cash is that since January 2026 the federal government has mandated that most grocery stores and petrol stations must continue to accept cash.
the field with “just a moment” … no idea if that is a source site issue, or just my ignorance again.
It’s not just you, that’s how all previews for that site load for me, too.
I suspect their DDOS protection software/service gets in the way for small platforms, like fediverse instances, while letting major social media platforms straight through.
Oh, I only just saw this!
Yeah, it’s not very intuitive at the moment. I like the suggestion that user made. Unfortunate the developers closed it, but they’ve got a lot on their plate, I guess.
They took two years to close it, so they’re probably somewhat sympathetic. A lot of people use third-party apps, though, some of which presumably address the issue in their UI.
every time I ‘add photo’ it uploads it (from file) but then also changes the url, it’s a little weird
Yeah, you’re not the first to be tripped up by it!
Basically, the ‘URL’ and the ‘Image’ fields are mutually exclusive. Either one of them can be the ‘primary content’ of a post, and you can only have one ‘primary content’. So if you use one, it wipes the other.
There is an alternative though!
If the content preview won’t load for a link, or you otherwise want to set a picture manually, you need to use the ‘Thumbnail URL’ field instead.
A handy way I use is to upload an image in the body field, then cut the URL from there and paste it in the ‘Thumbnail URL’. That way the image is re-hosted on the Lemmy instance, which is probably better than putting in a ‘Thumbnail URL’ pointing to another site.
Link is just an image, FYI
EDIT: I believe this is the article OP meant to link to: https://michaelwest.com.au/segal-ihra-antisemitism-justice-fagan-decision/
Would you support removing the tax on tobacco and alcohol? Why/why not?