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

When this 70 per cent tax hike on ready-to-drink beverages was first announced by the government, it was presented as a key measure in the fight against binge drinking. This was supposed to address alcohol abuse and alcohol abuse related harm in the community, in particular among young people. The reality is that this legislation was never about that. This tax hike was never about fighting binge drinking. It was never about addressing alcohol abuse related harm in the community. This was always a tax binge to deal with the Rudd government’s binge spending and binge debt. The hollowmen, the spin doctors, in the Rudd government that were looking for a way to sell a tax grab, to make it palatable to the public, thought the best way was to dress it up as a health measure.

We have had this debate earlier this year and we went—in some great detail—through all of the arguments as to why this is not an effective way to address binge drinking in the community. I say to the responsible drinkers of RTDs across Australia: the Rudd government wants to make you pay for and to make you contribute to their spending binge. They want you to pay to help address the financial mess that they have got our country into. In particular, I say to the responsible young people of legal drinking age who perhaps prefer the RTD beverages to some of the other alcoholic products available: this government wants you to help pay for their binge spending and their binge levels of debt. Young people are really the victims of this government across many areas. Young people are the victims of this 70 per cent tax hike on RTDs. They are the victims of the student tax grab that is being pursued by this government. And they are the people that will have to pay back the incredible levels of debt that are being mounted up under this government for decades to come.

When this measure was introduced, there was no health target. There was no performance measure alongside it to determine how, and by how much, the level of alcohol abuse related harm in the community was to be reduced. There was no measure whatsoever to give us some sort of target to measure whether it had been successful in helping to address alcohol abuse related harm in the community. There was only one target, and that was a fiscal target: the government wanted to raise $3.1 billion in additional revenue.

As I have mentioned, the government thought, ‘How do we sell this?’ The spin doctors came up with a great idea: ‘Let’s send out health minister Nicola Roxon and let’s ask her to sell it as a health measure.’ This is yet another area in which the Minister for Health and Ageing operates as the propaganda minister for Treasury to sell a good old-fashioned—or, rather, a bad old-fashioned—Labor tax grab on behalf of the government by dressing it up inappropriately as a health measure. Why do I say this is not an effective health measure? Well, there was no evidence to start off with that this would be the appropriate way to deal with this. Why is it that whenever there is a serious problem in the community the only way Labor think they can address it is by introducing a new tax or a tax hike? If they did want to address it through taxation, what they should have done—and this is what all the public health experts said before the relevant Community Affairs Committee inquiry—was make a hard decision. If Labor really wanted to address it through taxation, they should have made a hard decision and explored the opportunity of introducing volumetric taxation on alcohol. They know that if you really want to use taxation as a vehicle to help address alcohol abuse and alcohol abuse related harm in the community, then you have got to have in place a tax system that encourages people to go for lower alcohol content beverages rather than higher alcohol content beverages. Of course, in that context, this measure before us goes exactly in the wrong direction. This measure actually increases the tax on a comparatively lower alcohol content beverage and it makes more lethal alcoholic beverages comparatively more attractive.

If the Rudd government had gone to the authoritative data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the national body with the most authoritative data on levels of alcohol consumption and levels of drug use and abuse across the community, they would have seen that the drink of choice for male binge drinkers, the drink of choice for male problem drinkers, is beer for all ages; that is, from 14 years up. The drinks of choice for female binge drinkers are spirits and liqueurs, up until the age of 29, and white wine, for those 29 years of age and over. So, even by looking at the data of the most authoritative source, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, you note the government should have been able to see that by targeting ready-to-drink beverages they were actually targeting the wrong drinks. The international evidence was very clear that this was also not going to be an effective way of addressing binge drinking. In jurisdictions where this had been tried before all of the negative flow-on consequences that we predicted did actually happen.

We had two Senate inquiries into this. One of them was after this measure had been in place for 12 months, as we wanted to see whether the government had any evidence at all that this 70 per cent tax hike on RTDs had been successful in reducing alcohol abuse or alcohol abuse related harm in the community among young people in particular. There was none. There was no evidence at all. The only thing that the government were able to tell us was: ‘The sales of RTDs have gone down, which was why our revenue estimates have collapsed. Our revenue estimates have collapsed and so sales have gone down, so this is evidence that there is less binge drinking.’ But they cannot say that at all because they have got absolutely no idea of who is drinking less. All they know is that, yes, in the first year of this 70 per cent tax hike, the sale of RTDs went down. They have got no idea of who is drinking less and of whether they are problem drinkers or responsible drinkers drinking less. They have got no idea of whether problem drinkers are the ones who have actually substituted to the more lethal, stronger spirits. They have got no idea of whether younger people are now substituting with stronger spirits, the more lethal drinks. They have no data whatsoever.

In fact, what we pointed to at the time was Treasury modelling which indicated that as of 1 July 2009 the sales of RTDs were expected to go up again. Sure enough, that is exactly what is happening. As we said in March, when the Senate defeated this measure when it was first presented, the sales of RTDs are going up again. Let us go back through the government’s logic. When this was debated in March they were trying to tell us that sales of RTDs are down and that means consumption is down and that must mean that binge drinking is down. The sales are now going up again! Overall sales of alcoholic products across Australia are now higher than they were when this measure was first introduced. So does that mean that the government, by their own logic—the logic that they presented to us—now concede that binge drinking is up; because sales are up, consumption is up so binge drinking must be up? It is not a reasonable argument and I readily grant you that because we do not know who is drinking more. It could well be that responsible drinkers are drinking more and are drinking more responsibly. We would not have a clue.

The point I am making is that clearly from the outset this was never a health measure. It was trying to address in a simplistic way what is overall a very complex problem. Alcohol abuse and drug abuse are very complex social issues which we as a parliament ought to address seriously with a comprehensive, strategic approach that is well considered and based on the evidence. An ad hoc tax measure, an ad hoc tax grab which is the only thing that Labor ever seem to come up with when faced with a public policy challenge, is not the answer particularly when it has the sorts of flow-on consequences that this measure has very clearly had.

I raised in the debate in May, when we were looking at the consequences of the Senate’s defeat of the measure in March—and this is a very serious issue that I think the parliament will have to consider moving forward—that this measure was first introduced as a tariff proposal on about 27 April 2008 and tariff proposals are a very important administrative tool for government. It is important for a government to be able to introduce and announce revenue measures with immediate effect. There is an important proviso attached to that: those tariff proposals have to be validated by parliament. They have got to come to the Senate and we have got to have a vote on them. Normally that happens very soon after a particular proposal has been introduced by the government. On this occasion it took the government nearly 12 months. They waited until the last possible minute to introduce it. Why? I suspect the government were in doubt as to whether they had a majority on the floor of the Senate. They were concerned that on bringing this particular tariff proposal to the parliament the chances were it would be defeated. And so it was. The tariff proposal to increase the tax on RTDs by 70 per cent was defeated. The Senate rejected it. It did not have the support of the parliament.

Irrespective of that, the government continued to collect the revenue for another month and a half. There is argument that, because the tariff proposal was in place for 12 months, the government was able to do that. However, where I really am seriously concerned and where I will, along with my colleagues, explore all possible avenues to see this addressed is when the government turns around after that first 12-month period is out of the way and re-introduces the exact same tariff proposal in clear defiance of the express will of the parliament. The Senate, clearly taking the view that it would not be practical to return the $340 million that had been collected over the first 12 months of this measure, having rejected it in March, made a decision in May, which we had flagged we would support, to validate the revenue collected so far, making it very clear that we would not be supporting the continuation of that tax hike moving forward. The Senate, the parliament, had expressed its view. It had rejected the measure put forward by the government to increase the tax on ready-to-drink beverages by 70 per cent and, in complete defiance of the parliament, the government turns around and introduces a tariff proposal implementing the same measure again for a further 12 months. If this were allowed to stand, the government could go on and do this year in, year out. If this is a valid way for the government to act under current legislation, then I think the parliament has to very seriously consider ways in which it can ensure that the government takes note of, follows and acts on the decisions made by this parliament. Why would the parliament have to validate the tariff proposal if once it rejects that proposal the government can just turn around and say, ‘Thank you very much for that, but we will just go ahead and continue to do the same anyway’?

In concluding on behalf of the opposition, this was very bad public policy from the start. It is an ad hoc tax grab which has the potential to make things worse in terms of alcohol abuse related harm in the community, because it has the potential to encourage younger people to go for the more lethal spirits and mix them rather than for the premixed, comparatively lower content alcohol products. It is a measure that was never based on the evidence. It is a bad, old-fashioned Labor tax grab. It is part of Labor trying to address its binge spending and its binge debt. It was never based on the evidence when it was first introduced. It was sold as a health measure as part of a political strategy to sell a tax grab to the public; ‘Everybody surely is going to support this if we are doing it as part of our fight against binge drinking,’ was how the strategy went. This was the political strategy of the government. But there was no evidence that this would work that way at the start, there was no evidence after 12 months in operation, and we now know that the sales of RTDs are on the up again and, by the government’s own arguments two or three months ago when we last discussed this, this must mean, according to the government, that binge drinking is on the up again.

We are obviously in the situation now where this government has taken our country from a circumstance of no net public debt and a $22 billion surplus to a circumstance where this year we are looking at a $58 billion deficit and $315 billion of debt. In that context there is only one reason why the opposition, despite this being a very bad public policy measure, will not oppose it—and that is because of the financial mess the Rudd government has taken this country into. The financial mess that we find ourselves in today is the only reason the opposition will not be opposing this legislation. But let there be no doubt—this is a tax grab. The government dishonestly sought to sell it as a health measure for political purposes. There was no evidence that this ever was going to be effective from a health point of view when it was first introduced, there was no evidence that it would be effective after the first 12 months of operation, and we can now very clearly see that the sale of alcohol products overall is on the increase and that the sale of alcohol—RTDs in particular—is on the increase again. This measure has failed, and from that point of view we think that the government should have a very, very serious look at the way it is approaching this very serious social issue across our community.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens have maintained a consistent position throughout this debate on ready-to-drink beverages. We have had a clear policy position: we were focused on harm minimisation; we were focused on a policy position where we agreed we needed to reduce the influence of alcohol on our culture; and we needed particularly to protect our young and vulnerable and to offer help and support to those in need. Our position is evidence based and is consistent with that advocated by doctors, public health advocates and drug and alcohol experts. We have developed our position in close consultation with such organisations.

We support, in principle, taxation measures that increase the cost of those activities that are incurring a cost for society, cause people harm and do damage to our environment. Such measures send a clear price signal about these things—that these activities are undesirable—and they also of course provide a source of revenue which can and, this is very important, should, be directed to reducing that harm. We all know what alcohol abuse is doing and the cost of alcohol related harm to our community in Australia. The consistent estimate is that alcohol abuse is costing around $15.3 billion a year to our community. There are also those—myself included—who think this is an underestimate because it does not include the costs you cannot put a price on such as the impact of domestic violence on families and the harm and stress caused to the families of those suffering from alcohol related harm.

Alcohol delivers to the Commonwealth approximately $7.1 billion a year in customs and excise—that is, before the introduction of this additional excise on RTDs, which it is estimated will bring in $1.6 over four years or $400 million a year. We believe that the government needs to be spending much more of this money on preventing alcohol related harm, reducing its impacts and helping those who are suffering. We have the evidence of what works to reduce risky consumption of alcohol. In fact, it also relates to issues such as tobacco and junk food. In this case, we are talking about alcohol. However—and we have held this position consistently—price in itself will not work. A price mechanism alone does not work. All the national and international research on this clearly highlights that you need to be taking a comprehensive approach in dealing with this issue. This is the approach the Greens have been advocating and pursuing the entire time of this debate.

I must point out to the coalition, who keep saying that there is no evidence that price mechanisms work, that they have not been reading any of the national or international literature. In past debates on this issue, I have quoted many pieces of research. But I will provide one quote from a recent statement by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which said:

A 2009 review of 112 studies found that higher taxes and prices led to reduced consumption of alcohol, both for overall consumption and for measures of heavy drinking. In particular, young people’s drinking was very sensitive to price because their discretionary income is relatively small. A recent World Health Organization expert committee report concluded:

Policies that increase alcohol prices have been shown to reduce the proportion of young people who are heavy drinkers, to reduce underage drinking, and to reduce per occasion binge drinking. Higher prices also delay intentions among younger teenagers to start drinking and slow progression towards drinking larger amounts.

That is from national and international studies. While I agree with the coalition that we should be looking not just at ready-to-drink beverages but also at the overall issue of alcohol consumption and make this part of a comprehensive approach to binge drinking and alcohol related harm, we also need to look at alcohol products. That would be a much more consistent approach to dealing with alcohol related harm and would solve some of the issues that we have been talking about, such as alcohol substitution.

One of the issues to do with RTDs that is particularly important and one of the reasons why the Greens support this measure is that RTDs are particularly focused on young people. There is absolutely no denying that these products are focused on young people. They are colourful and they are sweet. They are designed to introduce young people to drinking. That is the nature of the product. They are trying to get people to drink earlier in life, to start them drinking. One of the reasons for the sweetness, as I have said in this place before, is that when you are younger you reject the taste of alcohol. Sweetness masks the taste of alcohol but gets you drinking. Then, in the view of some people in the industry, you can move to other forms of alcohol. That is why the Greens believe that it is particularly important to focus on RTDs. Having said that, we believe that there needs to be an overall approach to the pricing of all alcohol substances as part of a comprehensive approach to the problem of binge drinking and alcohol related harm.

This comprehensive approach includes the tackling of the very sensitive issue of the alcohol sponsorship of sport and phasing that out, and I will come back to that; stopping alcohol advertising to children; taking a tougher approach to the alcohol fuelled bad behaviour of some of our well-known public identities; mandatory warning messages on all alcohol advertising and at point of sale; requiring prominent, hard-hitting warning labels; and, investing in early identification, counselling and rehabilitation. That is what all the public health advocates, doctors and drug and alcohol experts say we need to be doing—in other words, taking a comprehensive approach.

We do not believe that it is acceptable for the Commonwealth to apply a tax, thinking that that is all they need to do to address alcohol problems. I recognise that the government has some preventative health measures in place that relate to alcohol. We have clearly said—and I will state it again—that we do not think that they go far enough. We believe that it is absolutely imperative that we take this much more comprehensive approach.

There was some media very recently, and Senator Cormann mentioned this, around a recent increase in the sales of RTDs. The Greens believe that is a clear indication of why we need a comprehensive approach and why this excise should be part of a package of measures. Other nations have introduced the concept of a minimum price for alcohol. We believe the government needs to look at that as part of a comprehensive approach.

The Greens have said to the government that, while in principle we support this measure, we believe it needs to be tied to a much more comprehensive package. That is why we negotiated, along with Senator Xenophon, a package of measures which starts to address the issues around sponsorship of sport, mandatory warnings, warning labels and social marketing and provides a hotline to help with early identification and counselling. We thought that was at least a step in the right direction towards developing a comprehensive approach.

We know that there are very clear ties between alcohol related harm and binge drinking and sponsorship of sport. We believe a plan needs to be put in place that starts to substitute some other type of funding for alcohol sponsorship of sport. We need to promote public health messages, working with local clubs and community organisations to provide them with a choice in order to replace alcohol sponsorship. We need to identify and support champions and advocates who can talk about the effects of alcohol related harm. We need look no further than to some recent unfortunate incidents associated with the Australian cricket team and some of our football teams and the ruined sporting careers of some sporting heroes because of alcohol related harm. People say that we should not be interfering with alcohol sponsorship of sport, that it is not really having that much of an impact. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Research has clearly shown that there is a link.

You only had to look at Ricky Ponting on TV talking about the unfortunate incident that led to having to send one of our Australian cricket team members home. He was sitting there with a cap with ‘VB’ on it and with a VB symbol on his shirt. He was talking about the impact that alcohol had had on the cricket team, yet here they are sponsored by an alcohol company and he cannot make a statement about the problems that alcohol has caused without actually having the logo of one of the Australian alcohol companies on his clothing. That sends an extremely poor message to our community. We have to break those links. Australia led the way in breaking those sports sponsorship links between tobacco and sporting activities and we need to be doing the same with alcohol.

The government, as part of taking a more comprehensive approach, has agreed to take a very small step. It will be setting up a fund to which sporting organisations and clubs can go, on a voluntary basis, to try and start breaking that link between alcohol sponsorship and sport. We need to be very clearly changing the messages that we are sending to our children and to our community. That links to advertising, where we need to be stopping the showing of alcohol advertising to children and where we need to be making sure that we have mandatory warnings with alcohol advertising on TV, in the print media and at the point of sale. It is very important that the impact of alcohol related harm and the impact on personal health are highlighted to people consuming alcohol. We also need to be dealing with labelling issues and making sure that we have strong and effective labelling on alcohol products.

We also need to be making sure that we are actually collecting data. I believe that decision makers and policy makers do not have access to adequate data to enable them to look at what measures are proving effective. We need to be making sure that all states and territories are collecting alcohol sales data from licensees, that emergency departments are collecting adequate and appropriate data and that it is standardised across the country. During the Senate inquiry, it proved exceedingly difficult to get access to standardised and effective data. We need to make sure that we are getting access to appropriate data from the police on the relationship that alcohol is having on incidents the police have to deal with. We believe these data collections could be enhanced by an early warning monitoring system which regularly accesses data on consumption and harm among sentinel groups of young people at risk across Australia. There is clearly a lot of further work that we need to do on data collection.

We also believe it is very important that we establish early identification and support services—to develop and research early identification referral services for at-risk drinkers and so maximise the benefits of early intervention, particularly for young drinkers. As I said earlier, we need to very clearly identify the impacts of alcohol across our society. We have absolutely no doubt that just dealing with RTDs is not going to deal with the overall issue of alcohol related harm in Australia. However, it will go a long way and it will go a long way to addressing alcohol related harm to young people.

We believe we need to have early intervention nurses in emergency departments and referral resources for police, schools and courts. We need a single national drug and alcohol hotline number to connect individuals, their families and friends to existing state and territory drug and alcohol services. We need joined-up services offering a client focused approach to referral, treatment and rehabilitation in a timely manner. We need more resources for counselling and rehabilitation throughout Australia. This is a particularly important point in a comprehensive approach. We need to be making sure that we are offering those rehabilitation services.

We also need strong social marketing campaigns. There are already some programs. The government will be contributing more resources to social marketing. These need to be well targeted, hard-hitting messages focused not just on young people, although you need to be making sure that particular messages are appropriately focused on the particular demographic group that you are trying to get your message through to. We obviously need an evidence based approach and we believe it needs to be done by an independent authority—that is, no industry involvement. We need to be using that to promote the alcohol hotline.

In conclusion, we believe that it is absolutely essential that Australia deals with the impact of alcohol related harm. We need to be dealing with the $15.3 billion worth of harm it causes Australia. We need to be focusing on some of the revenue that the government makes out of the consumption of alcohol—over $7 billion. We need to be allocating a greater proportion of that to address alcohol related harm. We need our program to address alcohol related harm to be comprehensive. We need it to be addressing licensing, advertising, sponsorship, social marketing and access to alcohol. We need the program to be addressing that comprehensive approach. All the national and international research shows that. We need to be taking an overall approach to alcohol.

This is one measure that must be (a) part of a comprehensive approach but (b) the first part of addressing the issues around alcohol pricing. Alcohol pricing works as a comprehensive approach, but it does not work just for RTDs; it works for all forms of alcohol consumption. If we are going to try and reduce the level of substitution—and the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs showed that there had been some substitution, although the overall level of alcohol consumption had dropped—then addressing price across the board on alcohol products could also address that issue of substitution.

We also need to mandate advertising controls, because quite obviously the current system is not working. I have articulated this issue in the past. I am very disappointed with the approach that the industry chose to take to the Excise Tariff Amendment (2009 Measures No. 1) Bill 2009 [No. 2] and to the Customs Tariff Amendment (2009 Measures No. 1) Bill 2009 [No. 2], and to this measure. They actively sought to undermine the measure by putting on excessive advertising over this issue and then offering alternative, cheaper products and encouraging substitution. While the industry made a big deal of the substitution, they actively encouraged that substitution. So the data on substitution unfortunately cannot be relied upon, because of the active campaign that was put in place by the industry to encourage substitution by focusing particularly on this measure.

So we will be supporting this measure. The government have given us a commitment they are still prepared to fund the package of comprehensive measures that the Greens and Senator Xenophon negotiated previously with the government. We think that is a step in the right direction in terms of taking a comprehensive approach to dealing with alcohol related harm and dealing with RTDs in particular. So the Greens will be supporting this measure and appreciate the government’s commitment to the package of measures that we negotiated with them.

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

Sometimes this place has a tendency to feel a little bit like groundhog day. Today is one of those instances, not just because we started the day, for the third day in a row, with the CPRS legislation but because we find ourselves back here once again today debating a flawed piece of government legislation that the Senate has already dealt with appropriately, by knocking it back at that stage. It is unfortunate that we are here again looking at this government’s alcopops bills, the Excise Tariff Amendment (2009 Measures No. 1) Bill 2009 [No. 2] and the Customs Tariff Amendment (2009 Measures No. 1) Bill 2009 [No. 2], which quite clearly are nothing more than a tax grab. It is disappointing to be back here again having to do this, because this is a narrow measure—a narrow measure that really does not do what the government claims in terms of striking at the heart of abusive drinking or drinking at risky levels. Instead, it is about revenue, pure and simple.

My colleague Senator Cormann summed up the many arguments against this measure and the approach taken by the government, in great detail and very eloquently, and I do not wish to go over those arguments again. Suffice to say it is the case that it looks likely that this measure will pass. That, too, is disappointing. But what has changed since these bills were first considered by the Senate, of course, is the fiscal situation of the country. Frankly, we now know that the Rudd government need the money—pure and simple. They need the money, they need the cash, from this measure. That is why it is likely to pass, why the debate has changed and shifted in the months since the bills were first rejected. It is disappointing that Australia is in this position, thanks to the profligacy of the Rudd government—their excessive spending, the way they have thrown money away left, right and centre.

These bills are a sign to Australians of what they will face in the years to come, because the only way Labor’s debt will be paid back will be through higher taxes. Higher taxes on alcopops, higher taxes on every part of Australians’ lifestyle and work life, will result from the government’s debt binge, because that is the only way it will be paid off: higher taxes and/or lower services—less for health, less for education, less for the environment. That is the result that we are likely to see.

But I do not wish to dwell on the overall aspects of this legislation. I want to focus particularly on one part, which I raised in my speech last time, which I raised in the committee stage and which I raised with the government. It relates to the shoddy drafting of some of the changes that were meant to capture ‘malternatives’, things that snuck in as a result of the initial introduction of the alcopops tax and tried to take advantage of other tax rates for other alcohol products. In particular the issue I raised previously was that of ginger beer, representing a constituent of mine in South Australia, Angove’s Family Winemakers, who have been makers of ginger beer for a long time. They make the Stones Ginger Beer product, a product with a history dating back hundreds of years. It has been made to the same formula, with the same ingredients and processes since the 1700s. Ginger beer is not a product that is causing widespread alcohol abuse in Australia. I have heard nobody argue that it is. It is incredibly disappointing that the government has failed to listen to those concerns.

It is disappointing because this was raised in the committee report into this legislation back in March. The committee noted at the time that Minister Roxon, in introducing the amendments, indicated that the government was prepared to make further changes to the proposed definitions in the event that any unintended consequences were identified. The Department of Treasury confirmed in its appearance before the committee that it would consider the particular issues raised by Angove’s Family Winemakers. The committee went on to express its belief that, should there be any further amendments to the new definitions, the government would be mindful of not creating further loopholes but would consider these concerns. The government-dominated committee seemed to believe that this issue could be addressed. Indeed, the supplementary explanatory memorandum made it clear that the amendments were not designed to affect the taxation of conventional products. Well, nothing is more conventional, nothing is more historical, than a product like ginger beer. So it is of great disappointment that the government has not listened to this concern. I raised it during the committee stage of the last debate with the then parliamentary secretary, Senator McLucas, on 17 March. Senator McLucas said:

We are in continuing discussions with your constituent … We understand that he is producing a product legitimately and it is a quality product. He is not trying to get through a loophole as some of the other producers have tried to do.

Sadly, those discussions have led nowhere fast. And Angove’s Family Winemakers finds the same bills presented, with the same terms, with the same catch that will ensure that they get caught out. That, frankly, is an unfair slug on an innocent producer of an innocent product. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the rest of this debate, I urge the government to pause, to take the time over the next few hours, during the likely pause in debate on this legislation, to think about bringing in some amendments to ensure that Angove’s are protected, to ensure that ginger beer is taxed as it should be—as a beer. That is the market it competes in. That is the market it is up against. Its taste profile, with a strong ginger element, is such that there is no way it is competing with alcopops. It does not have, as the brewers call it, ‘sessionability’, which in a sense is a phrase for those who might binge, who might consume to a great extent. I urge the government, and plead with the minister, to go away, talk to Treasury and get these changes in place.

Debate interrupted.