Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all senators who have contributed to the debate on the Excise Tariff Validation Bill 2009 and the cognate Customs Tariff Validation Bill 2009. These validation bills ensure that the additional duty collected on alcopops over the period of 27 April 2008 to 13 May 2009 does not have to be refunded to the payers of the duty or the manufacturers and importers of alcopops. To ensure that this does not occur, these bills, as we have heard, must be passed by parliament and receive royal assent today. The Senate’s approval of these bills will protect $424 million in revenue, so that revenue, collected under the tariff proposals, will not be returned as a windfall gain to alcopop producers and importers.

When we were last in this place, those opposite and the senators on the crossbenches indicated that they did not want this windfall to occur, and that has been reconfirmed today. Senator Siewert, you are right—the price of alcohol products is not the only lever that we have to pull in order to deal with inappropriate use of alcohol. That is something that all senators who have contributed to this debate have commented on. It is a problem Senator Fielding has rightly identified is of concern. That is why our government, back in March last year, introduced the National Binge Drinking Strategy—the first time that leadership had been shown on the question of alcohol abuse for the last 12 years. It is wrong to say that the government has not facilitated a debate about alcohol abuse. Compared to the previous government, which did not talk at all about alcohol for the last 12 years, our government is showing the leadership that you are quite rightly calling for.

In March of last year we introduced the National Binge Drinking Strategy. There are three elements to the strategy, three elements that we are rolling out to ensure that we start changing the culture around inappropriate alcohol use in the country. $14.4 million has been allocated to the community-level initiatives that Senator Xenophon spoke of. They were very well received by the community. It was the first time for a long time that that had been done. It is wrong to say that we are shirking the debate around alcohol abuse; we started it. I am sorry, Senator Fielding—you simply cannot say that this debate is not being had in an appropriate way. $19.1 million is going to be committed to early intervention projects in each state and territory around the country to ensure that young people assume personal responsibility for their drinking. Agreements between the states and territories have occurred, and that work is rolling out. There is a very successful social marketing campaign targeted at young and, particularly, underage drinkers entitled ‘Don’t turn a night out into a nightmare.’ Those were and are confronting ads and they are targeted at that part of the market that alcopops are targeted at. So we are working on many fronts. We are aiming to change behaviour, particularly amongst young Australians.

Senator Fielding said we are not doing any work on a whole range of other things like labelling and advertising. I table the communique of the 24 April meeting of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy. It said:

Ministers supported a series of proposals about alcohol advertising regulation to be presented to COAG including:

•       Mandatory pre-vetting of all alcohol advertising

•       Expanding the ABAC management committee to have a more balanced representation between industry, government and public health

•       Expanding the adjudication panel to include a representative specialising in the impact of marketing on public health,

•       Expanding the coverage of the scheme to include emerging media, point-of sale and naming and packaging, and

•       Meaningful and effective sanctions for breaches of the Code.

This is not only our government. This is our government showing leadership and working with the states and territories in order to meaningfully deal with all of those elements that will lead to inappropriate use of alcohol. We are happy to provide for Senator Fielding a briefing about the range of measures that we are undertaking to work in a meaningful way in this space.

That is all aside from the work of the Preventative Health Taskforce, the task force that will make its report and recommendations to the government in June of this year. I remind the Senate that our government established the Preventative Health Taskforce to look at three particular areas in the first instance. Those were alcohol misuse, tobacco and obesity. It is the first time ever that this country has turned its head toward a preventative health agenda that we so desperately need. It is wrong to say our government is not working to limit in a broad sense the health impacts on our community that come from the inappropriate use of alcohol. The government has introduced new excise and customs tariff proposals, with effect from 14 May 2009, so that the current tariff proposal rates remain on alcopops. This will ensure that revenue will have been collected for all spirits at the same rate, whether they were consumed as alcopops or full-strength spirits, for the last 12 months.

The government will also reintroduce the bills rejected by the Senate later in this session of parliament. This will legislate the higher rate for alcopops so that alcopops and spirits continue to be taxed at the same rate into the future. Senator Cormann and Senator Siewert asked what will happen after June if the Senate does not pass the reintroduced legislation. Can I say: that is speculative. It is our government’s view that the Senate should pass this measure. It would be speculative to make a judgment about what might happen in this chamber at that time. So it is a question that cannot be answered.

The government’s view is that the measure should be passed because we have seen such success coming from it. We have seen reductions in consumption. We have seen a 35 per cent fall in alcopops sales in the past 12 months and an eight per cent fall in spirits sales overall. There has been a slowing of consumption of alcohol across the board. This measure is working. The opposition knows it is working. The distillers in particular know it is working, and that is why they are fighting so hard. We know that spirits consumption is lower and that there is less growth in consumption across the board.