Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We might assume it is kids, but it is also fair to suppose—because we are dealing with supposition here—that many young people are substituting their alcohol in so-called alcopops with alcohol in free spirits, spirits that they mix themselves; and that the reduction in alcopop consumption is attributable to those older or more mature users of alcopops who have decided that cost is a factor in their consumption and they are moving to other, less expensive drinks. That hypothesis is as equally plausible as the hypothesis which the government has glibly asserted during this debate: the consumption of RTDs is going down; therefore our measure must be working in respect of abuse of alcohol by young people. The evidence simply is not there.

The danger in this scenario is that, while the evidence is not there, we know that at some point somebody is going to obtain evidence about the effect of this tax increase on the consumption levels and abuse of alcohol by younger Australians. And if that evidence, which this side of the chamber was expecting to have been obtained by the government during the last 12 months, does indeed suggest that simply substitution has been occurring and there is no significant improvement in the level of alcohol abuse by younger Australians, then the measure is repudiated, the public policy process whereby we make decisions on these matters is comprehensively undermined and future measures which rely on knee-jerk reaction or gut instinct about what needs to be done will be under a cloud—as perhaps they should be. But we cannot afford to make that mistake when so much is at stake in terms of the tax burden on the Australian people and when we potentially do so much damage to an industry which presently employs thousands of people in the sale of a perfectly legal product; namely, ready-to-drink beverages.

I think what has happened here is that many stakeholders in the community, particularly health stakeholders, have been urging more vigorous action on the part of government to deal with the problem of alcohol abuse for some time. Those people have been heartened by the announcement by the government that it would impose a very heavy level of taxation on a particular part of the alcohol market. Those stakeholders have been stampeded into supporting this measure—despite the lack of evidence before it was imposed that it was going to work and despite the lack of evidence that in the 12 months or so since it has been in operation that it has made any difference in this particular area—and have been prepared to support the measure because they have desperately wanted something to be done for a long time. At last something is being done and they are prepared to support it irrespective of the lack of hard evidence that usually such people in debates on public policy prefer to rely on when supporting or opposing particular measures. That is very sad, because if this measure is not having a positive impact on the level of abuse of alcohol by young people, as we on this side of the chamber believe may well be the case, and that evidence ultimately becomes available, then we will put back the wherewithal for a sensible debate about these sorts of reforms very significantly in the future, and that would be a great pity.

What this government has presented as being very unsatisfactory I think is an almost deceitful approach towards the task of demonstrating the worthiness of its legislation. It introduced the tax almost a year ago. It relied on the capacity of governments to delay the introduction of the legislation underpinning this taxation for almost a year. I think it would be reasonable for people observing this process to have assumed that the reason for the delay was not the heavy nature of the government’s legislative program—I do not need to remind senators that there have been a number of occasions where we have had no business to do in this chamber in certain weeks—but, rather, the government was delaying the introduction of the legislation in order to collect the evidence that this measure was going to deal with the problem that it said was going to be addressed—excuse my assault on the microphone.