No matter. Here's a suggestion that should sustain them for the full 12 months ahead: make this the year Canberra slaps a tax on sugar.

Excessive consumption of added sugar is one of the greatest preventable threats to our nation’s health. It is linked to obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dental disease and even, some studies suggest, depression. It is addictive, it disproportionately impacts on the poor, and it is often hidden.

Just because you don't see it listed on the ingredients doesn't mean it's not there. Sugar goes by 42 different names in the Australian food and beverage industries, some of them – turbinado, for example – utterly unrecognisable to those of us who don't wear a white lab coat to work.

Fairfax Media – which owns the Daily Liberal – has chosen to campaign on this issue, because we believe it matters.

Just as the negative impacts of alcohol and tobacco have been ameliorated to some degree by a regime of targeted taxation, so too should sugar be seen as a threat to our wellbeing, and treated accordingly.

The Australian Beverages Council, which represents some of the country's largest softdrink makers, believes it matters too. “The constant scrutiny and criticism of sugar-sweetened beverages remains the industry's most pressing and serious ongoing risk,” one industry figure wrote in the council's annual report last year.

Sadly, that same report also noted that through the council's concerted lobbying, the threat has been neutralised for now. “Politically, we have strengthened our profile with various politicians both in Canberra and in state parliaments,” wrote chief executive Geoff Parker. “Naturally senior bureaucrats are equally as important to engage with and our outreach has extended to many departmental offices."

Taxing sugar would put money back into the health system, which strains to cope with sugar-related illness. It might also provide funding for education about sugar's risks, preventative health interventions and dietary advice for those most at risk.

No new tax is easy to swallow, for consumers or politicians. But we believe it's necessary to address the true cost of an additive that has begun to leave a sour taste in the mouth.