Kiwis Say Yes To A Tax On Unhealthy Food - TV3’s The
MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
Wednesday 27 March, 2013
Kiwis Say Yes To A Tax On Unhealthy Food - TV3’s The Vote
New Zealanders voted for taxing unhealthy food after the premiere episode of new national debate programme The Vote, which screened tonight on TV3.
Duncan Garner and the Affirmative team were declared the winners of the debate at the end of the hour-long show with the votes tallied at 54% YES, 46% NO.
Viewers voted from around the country and overseas, with votes coming in from as far afield as Alaska, India, and the United Kingdom. The Vote was streamed LIVE at 3News.co.nz and was not geo-blocked. During the broadcast #thevotenz trended at #1 in New Zealand on Twitter.
Viewer votes:
Facebook | Website | Text | TOTAL | |
55%
YES 45% NO | 51% YES 49% NO | 56% YES 44% NO | 52% YES
48% NO | 54% YES 46% NO |
The theatre audience
voted before and after the debate. The results
are:Theater
audience vote – prior to
debate Theatre audience vote
– end of debate 44% YES
44% NO
12%
UNDECIDED42% YES
57%
NO
1%
UNDECIDED
The Vote is a new format, dubbed ‘competitive current affairs’, which sees co-hosts Duncan Garner and Guyon Espiner each month lead two teams to debate a hot topic. Tonight a coin toss decided that Duncan would lead the Affirmative team arguing that ‘It’s time to tax unhealthy food, with Dr Robyn Toomath of Fight the Obesity Epidemic and Geoff Simmons of the Gareth Morgan Foundation.
Guyon was joined by Lindsay Mouat Chairman of the
Food Industry Group, and Porirua Mayor Nick Leggett made the
case against the moot. Referee Linda Clark kept order in a
debate that was heated, passionate, informative,
entertaining, at times controversial and often hilarious –
as Guyon said in the debate: “If you eat food, you’re
going to care about this
debate.”
The arguments
for:
Duncan Garner’s team argued that New
Zealand needed to take effective action on the obesity
epidemic. Aside from the impact on the heath and wellbeing
of Kiwis, our economy could not afford the impact of an
obese workforce.
• “I think it’s as bad as it gets.
We’re the third worst eaters in the world.” - Dr Robyn
Toomath.
• “In 1980 one in 10 people were obese. Now
a million of us are obese”. - Dr Robyn
Toomath.
• “Unhealthy food now kills more people than
cigarettes … we need to treat this as as big a threat as
smoking.” - Geoff Simmons
• “One in five Kiwis has
the early signs of diabetes [which] is going to wipe out our
workforce.” – Geoff Simmons
• “[Soft drinks] have
absolutely no good nutrients in them whatsoever. It’s the
equivalent of filling your car up at the pump with petrol
and never checking the oil and water”. – Geoff
Simmons
• “We know that price is a very powerful way
of changing choice. It’s the most effective means that we
have.” – Dr Robyn Toomath
Asked for details on the
proposed tax, the Affirmative team said they’d start with
a 20% tax on soda and sugary drinks, with the money raised
by taxation used to make healthy food
cheaper.
The arguments
against:
Guyon’s Espiner’s Negative team said
a tax simply wouldn’t work, that freedom of choice was
under threat, and that the impact on lower income earners
would be unfair. Instead, they argued the supermarket
duopoly needed to be broken to make food prices more
competitive overall, and that treat food should not be more
expensive for those who eat it occasionally.
• “Lower income people are not going to be helped by
some nutritional nanny state.” – Nick
Leggett
• “Who decides what’s unhealthy? It really
worries me that this is actually a tax by zealots who want
to control us.” – Nick Leggett
• “The end point
is, the government is going to give you a shopping list to
go to your supermarket and buy your products.” - Lindsay
Mouat
• “I agree we should be incentivising everybody
to eat more affordable food and more healthy food. You
don’t do that through a regressive tax that hits the very
people who can’t afford it”. – Nick
Leggett
• “The public is confused. It was only a few
years ago we were told we’re eating too much fat, then it
became too much sugar, then it became too much salt, too
much carbohydrate … Any food in excess is not good for
you.” - Lindsay Mouat
A full transcript of the
programme will be available at TV3.co.nz/TheVote
within a few hours of the broadcast, and the
episode will be available to view
OnDemand.
--
About
THE VOTE
The
Vote is competitive current affairs – a monthly
series of entertaining and informative national debates on
the big issues facing New Zealanders. The debates take place
in theatres with audience participation and viewers at home
are invited to take part, by having their say and
voting.
The opinion that matters most is that of the audience watching at home, who are encouraged to vote for free at www.TheVote.co.nz, via Twitter @TheVoteNZ and Facebook at The Vote NZ. Viewers can also vote by texting ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to 3920 at a cost of 20 cents per text.
The Vote is produced by TV3’s
News and Current Affairs division with funding from NZ On
Air, and screens once every four weeks in the same timeslot
as 3rd
Degree.
3rd
Degree presents ‘The
Vote’.
IT’S TIME TO TAX UNHEALTHY
FOOD
Wednesday 27 March, 8.30pm on
TV3.
Website: www.TheVote.co.nz
Twitter:
twitter.com/TheVoteNZ
Facebook:
facebook.com/TheVoteNZ
MediaWorks
NZ Limited (website: www.mediaworks.co.nz ) is New
Zealand’s leading private sector broadcast and online
media company. Through its specialist divisions –
MediaWorks TV, MediaWorks Radio and MediaWorks Interactive,
it owns and operates the TV3 and FOUR television networks,
national radio brands The Edge, The Rock, MORE FM, Kiwi FM,
RadioLIVE, LiveSPORT, The Sound, The Breeze, George FM and
Mai FM, plus several local radio stations, and a family of
websites.
ENDS