You Booze you Lose - End the Alcohol Tax

No one quite does ‘sin taxes’ like Australia. The Aussie alcohol tax has increased 71 times and will increase again this August. It is indexed to go up every 6 months. All because the government thinks that they know how you should live your life better than you do.

These tax hikes will do nothing to improve public health. In fact, it can have a regressive effect as people substitute alcohol with cheaper drugs. In regional and rural areas crystal meth is the alcohol-replacement drug of choice.

Milking ordinary Australians even further with tax hikes is both unwelcome and cruel. The well-resourced health lobbyists might be happy to cop these tax hikes, but ordinary Australians and our families are not.

In Australia, an $8 beer would only cost $4.50 without tax! Even worse, an $8 G&T would only cost $3.50 without tax. And it’s just going to keep going up unless we make our voices heard.

Australians pay the fourth highest tax on beer in the globe. Australia has a whopping 17x more tax on beer than Germany, 15x Spain, 7x US, 6x Canada, 4x France, 2x New Zealand. Congratulations Australia, we are a leading nanny state when it comes to alcohol.

The alcohol tax also disproportionately impacts poor and lower-income Aussies. People in poorer areas statistically drink more and even if they didn't the tax would take up a higher percentage of their income than higher income individuals.

Make no mistake, well-resourced kill-joys are determined to get in the ears of politicians to spread their punitive tax agenda. The only way to combat them is to send a strong message to the powers that be.

We the undersigned are opposed to the tax on alcohol as we do not believe that everyone should be forced to pay for the irresponsible behaviour of a few.

The Australian taxes on alcohol are excessive, especially by the world’s standards. Australians pay the fourth highest tax on beer in the globe. It is handicapping our domestic liquor industry. We are calling for the abolition of the alcohol tax.

We recognise that the impacts of excessive drinking pose significant public health issues. However, we do not support ineffective interventions and punitive taxes which will only hurt the majority of hardworking, responsible Australians.

Milking ordinary Australians with alcohol tax hikes every six months is cruel. Tourists come to Australia and marvel at just how expensive our alcoholic beverages are. While problems associated with over-consumption of alcohol must be addressed, punishing regular consumers with exorbitant tax hikes is not the appropriate answer.

We call for the abolition of the excise on alcohol as a cruel and unnecessary tax. Stop hurting the liquor industry and the pockets of Australians.