Q + A - Second Panel response to Nikki Kaye interview

Sunday 4th April, 2013

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Q+A

PANEL DISCUSSION 3 – in response to Nikki Kaye interview

HOSTED BY SUSAN WOOD

SUSAN WOOD
Raymond, what do you think?

RAYMOND MILLER, Political Scientist, Auckland University
Well, I agree that it’s a step in the right direction. I don’t know if it’s a huge milestone, as the minister described it. One of the problems, as you’ve identified, Susan, is the problem, really, of simplicity, because when you go to the supermarket and you’re concerned about what’s in your food, the tendency is to want to take a dictionary and a calculator along with you-

SUSAN And a magnifying glass.

RAYMOND Exactly. I see people in my local supermarket trying to figure out- So you need simple labelling, and that’s why the traffic light system is so good.

SUSAN They say unintended consequences with that, though.

RAYMOND Well, the problem is, of course, the food industry’s not happy with this, because it tends to shame those people who, actually, are producing bad food. It’s all very well saying ‘this is good food’, but we need to know about added sugar, we need to know about salt, we need to know about fat. It would be simple enough to conceive a system that works. You could look at the label and say, ‘ah, that’s good for me’ or ‘that’s bad for me’. And I think the way it’s being done is too cautious, really, and won’t tell us enough.

SUSAN And incredibly slow. 10 years to get this far. Now, that’s a couple of governments, actually, so I’m not going to particularly blame this one. 10 years and then three years for this to come in.

HELEN KELLY, President, Council of Trade Unions
It’s in a policy setting where the price of food is too high, where they’ve stopped the healthy school programme which Labour introduced, that schools shouldn’t be selling crap food. So this is a government that has actually degraded healthy eating programmes, and now it’s bringing in labelling. Poverty is on the increase, and people can’t afford healthy food.

SUSAN How do you warn people off the bad food, though? What’s a simple way to do it?

HELEN I think what they should be doing is making sure that healthy food is affordable, that schools are not selling crap food to young children, which is where you start. You start with diets of younger children. Those are the sorts of things, if they really wanted to make a difference, they’d be doing. But instead they’ve been winding those programmes back, and now they’re bringing in the star system.

SUSAN Michael?

MICHAEL BARNETT, CEO, Auckland Chamber of Commerce
At the end of the day, we’ve got a labelling system now that claims to be organic, and it is not. But we have a labelling system. We’ve got a Fair Trading Act and labelling rules and regulations. What it tells me is that these rules and regulations are not being abided by. They’re not being well policed. But to me, it doesn’t matter what you put on that label, If I’m reading it and I don’t understand the consequences of the amount of sugar or the amount of whatever is in it, I’m still going to buy it. So I wonder if we’re attacking the right end of it - attacking the side that says it’s about what’s on the label. In actual fact, what we need to do is educate people on the consequences of what they’re eating.

SUSAN So, for example, look at a cigarette packet these days. It might say ‘this will cause lung cancer’ or something. You’re saying, ‘this will make you fat’. I mean, you could have it on all food, though, couldn’t you? What are you really meaning by that?

MICHAEL For instance, if it’s got a degree of salt or something, it’s declared on the label, I would look at that and I would suggest to you that 90% of people would look at it and say, ‘so, what’s wrong’? It’s understanding the consequences.

HELEN And a number of people will look at it and say, ‘well, that’s all I can afford.’

SUSAN And, sadly, the cheaper- the horrible, processed, full of salt and fat food is the cheaper food, sadly.

HELEN Exactly, and if they really wanted to make a difference-

SUSAN Yeah, but what are you talking about? How would the government do that?

HELEN Well, there was a previous programme that didn’t allow-

MICHAEL Not a government issue.

HELEN No, there was a previous programme that didn’t allow schools, for example, to sell unhealthy food. Do you remember that? They got rid of the fizzy drink machines out of secondary schools-

SUSAN There’s nothing to stop schools doing that, though, is there?

HELEN There’s nothing, but they got rid of that programme, is what I’m saying. So you’ve got the minister here saying, ‘we want everybody to eat healthier’, but on the other hand, they’re doing this stuff which is favouring food producers. My view is that food producers have a huge influence on this government. It’s a voluntary scheme. They think it’s a good thing - why isn’t it compulsory?

SUSAN Isn’t it, Raymond, a matter of education, though?

RAYMOND It is a matter of education, but in order to educate the public at large, you also have to have accurate information. People should be able to look at a label and understand whether what they’re going to be buying is good for them or bad for them. And I think the problem is that if you soft-pedal that and think, ‘oh, OK, we better not, you know, we don’t want to shame producers so that the products don’t get sold’, I think as long as we’re scared of that sort of thing, then, unfortunately, the education side of things won’t work properly.

ENDS

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