Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

(1) Schedule 1, heading, page 3 (line 1), omit "Temporary", substitute "Indefinite".

(2) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (line 7), omit "Temporary", substitute "Indefinite".

(3) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (lines 8 to 19), omit subsection 6L(1), substitute:

(1) Despite any other provision of this Act, subsection 6A(1) applies in relation to each CPI indexed draught beer rate as if the indexation factor were 1 for 1 August 2025 or a later indexation day.

Note: This means the rates as they are on 31 July 2025 will be unchanged indefinitely.

I propose amendments to the Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 and Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025. The rising cost of living has challenged millions of Australian families for several years now, with inflation rising sharply since our economy bounced back after COVID. The government has a hand in setting the price of relatively few grocery items, but one of them is the cost of beer. The average price of draught beer has gone up by over 30 per cent in the last three years, an increase which is considerably higher than the rate of inflation. This has, at least in part, been driven by the automatic indexation of the beer excise every six months which has forced price increases above their annual CPI. This indexation is yet another typical anomaly in our unnecessarily complex tax system.

It's pleasing to see the government's commitment to freezing indexation on draught beer for two years, but indexation of the excise over recent years has left those draught beer prices already too high. Indexation of the beer excise needs to stop, and that's why I'm moving that this freeze should be permanent. A permanent cap on the draught beer excise would help millions of Australians with cost-of-living pressures. It would also help support Australia's emerging craft beer industry. Despite rapid growth of small independent brewers, 85 per cent of Australia's beer market is controlled by two foreign owned multinationals. Our craft beer industry supports local workers and economies. The independent beer sector employs over 8,000 people directly, with many brewers also contributing to local hospitality and to tourism. Independent brewers face challenges with the rising cost of ingredients and energy, softening consumer demand and stiff competition from large retailers like Coles which are increasingly selling home brand beers and mimicking craft styles. Many small brewers deferred excise increases during COVID and are now struggling with that debt in a persistently tough economic climate.

Alcohol taxation in Australia does not make a whole lot of sense. The wine equalisation tax taxes wine and other fruit based alcohol products based on their wholesale price, not their alcohol content. That has led to an oversupply of cheap wine products in Australia. It's decreased tax income, but it's also increased consumption of fruit based alcoholic products, flavoured ciders and cleanskins. The WET should be abolished. We should tax all alcohol products consistently with a volume metric tax based upon their alcohol content. That has been recommended by several independent reviews.

There is a lot more that we could and should do to responsibly tax the alcohol industry. In fact, there is plenty that we could do and should do to reform our tax system overall. We could derive fairer income from fossil fuel and mineral exports by more effectively taxing resources that are owned by all Australians. We could get reasonable income from our digital services. We could stop subsidising fossil fuels by means of the diesel fuel rebate for mining companies. We could tax labour less and income from passive sources such as rent, interest, super and capital gains more. We could take a good hard look at every part of our tax system, and we could have the courage to tackle housing affordability as well as the significant challenges associated with the funding of health, education and aged care.

But to do that, we would need to have a government which had both courage and vision. For the moment, those of us who do care about tax reform in this country have to push this government—bit by bit, issue by issue—to make things fairer and more equitable, and to restore some sense to a system which really does not make a whole lot of sense. And so I've moved this amendment to permanently freeze indexation of the draft beer excise to help thousands of Australian craft brew workers and to offer some cost-of-living relief to the millions of Australians who simply want to be able to afford one of the simpler pleasures of life.

Question negatived.

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