Call for a sugar tax

T ASMANIA’S struggling health system is at risk of collapse if chronic issues like obesity are not dealt with by measures including a sugar tax, experts warn.

With hospitals already bursting at the seams, rising rates of obesity, high numbers of smokers and an ageing population threaten to make the public health service unsustainable, health experts say.

The State Government’s Healthy Tasmania plan does not go far enough and needs a major injection of money if it is to tackle the problem, they say.

“It doesn’t matter how much you throw at the health system at the moment, it’s fundamentally unsustainable while we have the prevalence of chronic disease at the levels that we have it,” Menzies Research Institute director Alison Venn said.

Unchecked obesity levels threaten an epidemic of heart disease and diabetes, with Tasmanians among the nation’s most overweight.

Two-thirds are overweight or obese compared to 62.8 per cent nationally, and up from 38 per cent in 1990. Thirty per cent of children are in the same category, compared to 25.8 per cent across Australia.

A levy on sugary drinks, advertising restrictions and tougher controls on where fast-food outlets can be built are among changes health experts believe should be urgently implemented.

“Australia’s had extraordinary successes in tobacco control and governments have had to take some tough decisions, despite claims of the nanny state,” Prof Venn said.

The Public Health Association of Australia and Australian Medical Association are backing a sugar tax as one of many strategies to tackle the state’s health issues.

“Please reinvest [the levy] into preventative health,” said Gillian Mangan, state spokeswoman for the association.