Sugar tax ‘will come’

A TAX on sugary drinks to reduce obesity is “inevitable”, the outgoing Australian Medical Association president says.

In his final speech before leaving the top job, Dr Michael Gannon said he expected to see an Australian tax similar to those introduced recently in Britain and Ireland.

“In fact it is so simple, and so obvious, I worry that it will be seen by a future government as a ‘silver bullet’ to what is a much more complex health and social policy issue,” Dr Gannon told the AMA’s national conference in Canberra yesterday.