Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Redlands Coast Distillery is a family owned and run artisan craft distillery located in my electorate. After COVID let to an overnight halt to Steve Pannan's career in the entertainment industry, he took the opportunity and a great entrepreneurial risk to create a distillery. It's the sort of risk the Australian government should be immensely proud of—people of passion and vision putting up their capital and commitment to create new value for our economy. Whether it is their signature dry gin or other varieties made using local Redlands botanicals and fruits, this distillery produces some wonderful product. They also recently won the people's choice award in the trades, manufacturing and construction section at the Redlands Business Excellence Awards.

The Commonwealth government should be rewarding this hard work and entrepreneurialism but, regrettably, it is the punitive nature of Australia's spirits tax regime that is holding back this emerging business and this emerging industry. Australia's oppressively high spirits tax is the third-highest in the world and acts as a disincentive to investment and job creation. While small distillers benefit from an increase in the craft distiller remission limit introduced by the former government, the government will claw back more than five times that amount through tax increases announced in the last year alone. I'm proud to have such an excellent small business in my community and I encourage the government to take a serious look at reducing excise.