Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition understand very much where Senator Fielding is coming from because he has identified the same flaws in the government’s legislation that we have identified. We will not be able to support Senator Fielding’s amendment because it goes beyond what the Senate agreed to only last night. In fact, last night the Senate agreed to a request for an amendment that will put in place a sunset clause. We moved to validate the revenue collected by the government as a result of the increased tax on RTDs since 27 April last year until royal assent is given for this bill. Senator Fielding, on behalf of Family First, is proposing to add a further six months to that, but the coalition is very satisfied with the decision made by the Senate last night. Moving forward, the requests for amendments that were passed by the Senate last night will reduce the level of taxation on RTDs that have below 10 per cent alcohol content back to where they would have been if the government had not implemented its 70 per cent tax hike last year.

The reason we are here having this argument is that the government tried to sell a tax grab as a health measure. It was a sham from the start. The reality is that the government wanted to raise $3.1 billion in cash to keep the pretence going that it was able to keep a surplus. Those were the days of the Prime Minister trying to sell himself as a fiscal and economic conservative, so the government looked around for some easy targets. ‘What is the best possible spin? Let’s tell everyone that this is really about fixing binge drinking. Let’s just try and pretend that we are trying to fix a serious problem when really what we are trying to do is raise some more cash.’

The best guide to what a government truly want to do rather than what they are saying they want to do is in the budget papers. If you want to find out what the government are actually trying to achieve with this bill, have a look at the budget papers. There is no public health target attached to this measure in the budget papers. There are no public health outcome performance measures. During the Senate inquiry, I asked questions of the general manager from the Department of the Treasury about whether the Treasury, the Department of Health and Ageing or anybody in government had put in place any performance measures that would help us to assess whether the measure had been effective in reducing binge drinking, in addressing at-risk levels of alcohol consumption or indeed in reducing alcohol abuse related harm in the community. The answer was no.

There is only one target in the budget papers, and that is a fiscal target. There is a target to raise $3.1 billion in new revenue. There is no public health policy target, just a fiscal target. When the government fail to meet that target, guess what happens? The government say: ‘Isn’t it great? We failed to meet our fiscal target. Isn’t it a great success?’ We turn around and we hear the government say: ‘This proves that the measure is working. This is what we wanted all along. We didn’t want to raise $3.1 billion.’ As if! This has been an absolute sham.

Believe it or not, the government actually came along and tried to tell us that the failure to meet their targets in the budget papers was exhibit A. That was their ‘evidence’ that their measure was working and that they were able to achieve an objective—one that was not written up anywhere in the budget papers—by failing to meet the targets that were there. They said, ‘In the budget papers we say we want to raise $3.1 billion—nothing else. The fact that we have not got there proves that that we are achieving our real objective.’ Senator Fielding is quite right: the government are not serious about addressing the binge-drinking problem. This measure does not demonstrate seriousness about addressing the binge-drinking problem. All this measure does is demonstrate a government that is intent on and serious about raising additional revenue.

After this had subsided and people were not really buying the argument anymore that the government’s failing, by $1.5 billion, to reach the $3.1 billion revenue target was evidence that the government’s measure was working, what was the next piece of evidence? It was exhibit B: sales of RTDs have gone down, so binge drinking must be being addressed effectively. The argument goes like this: that sales are down means consumption is down, which means binge drinking is down. But there is no evidence to make the link between sales down, consumption down and binge drinking down. If you say sales down equals consumption down equals binge drinking down, does that mean, if sales go up and consumption goes up, that binge drinking goes up, because that is exactly what the government are expecting to happen? If you look at the fine print in the MYEFO 2008-09, you will see that as of 1 July 2009 the government expect sales of RTDs to go up by 7.8 per cent every year from here on in—so sales up equals consumption up equals binge drinking up in the government’s logic. This just shows that tax measures, in the absence of a comprehensive strategy and in the absence of a strategic approach to the serious issue of alcohol abuse, are just not a serious way of going about this and the government have been found out.

Let us be very clear about this: from the outset this was a tax measure which the government, for political reasons, sought to dress up as a health measure. They have not been able to present one piece of evidence that it is an effective tax measure to address a health problem. Not even the Labor senators on the committee were prepared to sign up to the proposition that this measure had achieved a reduction in binge drinking or had achieved reduced alcohol consumption or reduced alcohol abuse related harm in the community. Not even the government’s own senators were prepared to sign up to that proposition, yet the minister and her propaganda machine keep saying, with a straight face, ‘We have the evidence. The evidence is there. This measure is working.’ Well, this measure is not working and this is not the way to go about it.

In closing, I refer to Senator Fielding’s amendment. We understand where he is coming from. We understand that he shares the coalition’s view that this is not an effective way of addressing the binge-drinking problem across Australia. We understand that he would like to see the measure in place for another six months. But the coalition are very happy with the decision that was made by the Senate last night to establish, in effect, a sunset clause at the time of royal assent and to reduce the applicable tax back down to the level it would have been at if the government had not implemented their 70 per cent tax hike in the first place.