Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not enter this debate with any spirit of vindictiveness, but it would not be a surprise to honourable members that this is a matter of seminal interest to me and my electorate. Probably the longest standing distilling company in this country is situated in Bundaberg and has been there for 120 years. It is an adjunct to the sugar industry. It employs a lot of people. It has a magnificent tourist centre that attracts 80,000 tourists a year. It has a quality product. It is one of the best corporate supporters of sport in this country and, on top of that, it has a responsible drinking policy.

The Minister for Health and Ageing has made the claim in this debate that her measures have reduced the consumption of alcopops by about a third. Of course, that is true. If you put 2½ times the excise on a certain product, you will achieve a result of lower consumption of that product. But what you have not demonstrated for us in this debate is what those young people who you claim were drinking alcopops have substituted for them. You have not established that. You have not been able to refute that people are putting full-strength spirits into bottles of Coke and cans of ginger ale, or whatever it might be, and drinking probably a much more dangerous cocktail. That is another aspect of it that is quite important.

The other thing that I find appalling is that we have a mentality in this country that pretty much goes back to the days of the Rum Rebellion and the British Navy, in that there has been a totally illogical prejudice that somehow people who drink spirits—who drink rum or whisky—are toffs and therefore they can be taxed at a higher level. I suppose it gained a lot of traction in the days of the Rum Rebellion and in the British Navy, where whisky and rum became a commodity that was almost a currency. But we live in an enlightened time. No-one should be able to tell any citizen of this country, young or old, vulnerable or otherwise, that they cannot drink alcohol of a particular strength.

How is it that alcohol derived from spirits should be taxed at a different rate to beer or wine? What logic drives that? Why is it that if I have a half-strength can of XXXX Gold, which has 3.5 per cent alcohol by volume, I am a better citizen than I would be if I had the Bundaberg Gold grey label mixture of Bundy and Coke, which is also 3.5 per cent? Am I any more vulnerable? Is a young person drinking beer at the same rate as that any less vulnerable? You have to be logical about this thing, and what this bill does is take us back to the old ways. Let people pay their excise according to the alcohol they consume.

Having said that, I am not in any way attacking the wine industry. I recognise that there will always need to be certain incentives for the wine industry. I have wineries in my electorate, and I was a supporter of the cellar door amendments. But, please, on these basic matters, let us get back to a bit of fairness and equity. If you have evidence, Minister—and we have all asked you this today—tell us where the people who have been abusing alcopops have gone, because I can tell you, from my experience, that they have not stopped drinking. They have moved from one mode of alcohol to another. If you look at the bare figures for the last quarter in the case of Lion Nathan and in the last half-year in the case of Fosters, you will find that beer consumption is rising rapidly. So you would want to be quite sure that you are not replacing one form of alcohol abuse in young people with another. (Time expired)

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