Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, the alcohol excise increased again. Taxes on alcohol raise over $6 billion a year from all Australians, rich and poor alike. As I listen to people across my home state of Queensland, this is an issue I hear all the time.

Hospitality staff are worried about their jobs. Higher alcohol prices mean fewer customers come in and less staff are required. Hospitality venues are closing faster than the other businesses being sent broke under the Albanese government. The Guardian predicted last week that this year one in 10 hospitality venues will fail, collapse. With those failures go all the income tax and the general taxation generated from their hard work.

An increase in the alcohol tax doesn't raise more revenue, it just moves existing revenue around: more alcohol tax, less income tax, less general revenue. This has been a gradual process. The problem is not just this last rise, it's the 84 tax increases that have occurred since the introduction of alcohol tax under the Hawke Labor government in 1983. Ironically, Mr Hawke held the world record for beer sculling. The loss of hospitality venues and the rising cost of patronising those venues takes from everyday Australians a simple pleasure, one that encourages social contact, support and mental health. They are venues where alcohol is served according to rigorous, responsible-service-of-alcohol rules. This is replaced with drinking at home, where there's no peer support, no 'Mate, you've had enough', nobody to stop drunk shopping or drunk gambling or drink driving.

One Nation will abolish the alcohol tax levied on hospitality venues, to save these businesses, so they can continue offering social benefit, employment and the other taxes they pay, including taxes on their profits. One Nation want to see all hospitality workers earning a fair wage and having a life, not languishing on unemployment benefits because this government failed to see the unintended consequences of its greed. We are one nation, one community. Pubs and clubs support communities.