Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Australians we spend $130 billion on our health system every year, more than the income tax we collect. We spend about $80 billion in the two major supermarket chains. But we spend barely $1 of health money in supermarkets. It is remarkable that out-of-pockets for health are around $100 a year median expenditure by Australian adults, yet we spend up to $4,000 in supermarkets. If we are going to get healthy, we need those two to intersect, and the major supermarket retailers can play a bigger role.

Loyalty programs are the key, and these two cards have over 8 million members each. These are at the moment fairly unsophisticated programs, simply tracking how we spend our money, but the time will come when they will be giving us information about the health of our shopping. Already, virtually every item on a supermarket shelf has a nutrient analysis performed by FSANZ. That information needs to be carried on here and we need to be able to tell supermarkets what our preferences are in shopping: low sugar, low fat, low fructose—whatever it is, we should be able to tell supermarkets what we are interested in to receive direct promotions around those items. That is now possible. We are now seeing Fitbits—wireless activated tools—as an ample way of telling supermarkets what we want to receive and receiving information from them. Only then do we have regular and frequent reminders about healthy eating. If we are reminded every time we shop of our total consumption of fats, sugars and proteins, we can embark on the valuable road to better health.