Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My evidence, Senator McLucas, is the ATO clearance data that I just cited, showing a 17 per cent increase in the sale of full-strength spirits. Senator McLucas, if you wish to take that on, I can line up hotelier after hotelier who will tell you what the consumption trend is and what the purchasing trend is. It is one bottle of spirits in one hand and one bottle of soft drink in the other, and that is what they walk away with. There is a serious risk if that is their drinking pattern.

I do not disagree that there are some who abuse every category of alcohol including RTDs, and I said at the beginning that we need to work out serious ways to tackle those issues. But, if you really want to focus on tackling that issue, be careful not to squeeze the balloon and create an even bigger problem elsewhere. That is a serious risk that exists there.

In the short time that is left I wish to touch on one specific issue. The government introduced the RTD alcopops tax and then discovered over the following nine months or so that a whole lot of ‘malternatives’, as they have come to be known, have sprung up. We saw beer based and wine based alcopops appear in the marketplace, so a couple of weeks ago Minister Roxon rushed some changes into the House of Representatives to try to cover off those loopholes. It makes some level of sense to try to cover off those loopholes; it highlights the flaw in the government’s approach. It is a bit like trying to plug holes in a dyke: once you get one, another leak springs up and you are continually trying to catch up with yourself.

But there have been some unintended consequences as a result of the government’s moves to broaden the definition. One of those relates particularly to constituents of mine in South Australia—the Angove Family Winemakers. Angove’s have the licensing rights to produce Stones Ginger Beer in Australia. Ginger beer is not exactly a huge-volume product. It is not a product that I sample on a terribly regular basis, I have to say, but nonetheless it is a very traditional product that has been made since the 1700s. Angove Family Winemakers, a wine business in the Riverland in South Australia that has been producing beverages for seven generations now, decided that it would take on as a family business the Australian licence for Stones Ginger Beer. They had a history of making other Stones products as well in this country.

Unfortunately, they discovered, after no consultation with them or broader consultation around the place, that the government’s changes to the definition of beer shifts Stones Ginger Beer from being taxed as a beer to now being taxed as an RTD. That is very disappointing for them. In making their beer they strove to make sure that it would fit the definition of beer. They wanted to be able to call it a beer, they wanted to be able to market it as a beer and they wanted to make sure that it fitted the right definition. They could have made it from wine based spirit and it would have been taxed less, but they chose not to because they wanted to make the real deal and be authentic about it. Now they are an unfortunate victim of these changes by the government.

I note in the majority report—and I give full credit to Senator Claire Moore, the chair of the committee, for her approach to this issue—that the government has suggested that Treasury will look at this issue. Looking at it will not be good enough. My concluding questions to the government in this speech on the second reading, which I will pursue in the committee stage, are these. Will you move amendments to fix the definition of beer to protect this traditional beer product as the definition of traditional wine products has been fixed? Will you look after this small business, this small niche beer product, just as other niche products in the wine area have been looked after? Will you ensure that your unfair measures that have now been whacked on a small South Australian family business are lifted—at least from them—should you manage to convince the Senate to pass this bill? Though I hope you do not pass this bill, I do urge you as the government to consider this issue. (Time expired)