Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025, Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025

Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (18:27): I will start by saying what a wonderful speech that was from the federal member for Moore. Finally, we have a member of the Labor Party who isn't a neo-puritan. Finally, we have a member of the Labor Party who actually believes that people have a right to have fun and live their lives as they see fit, who respects their capacity to do so, and who actually believes there is a place in society for people to have the freedom to choose how to live their lives.

It was one of the most refreshing and enjoyable speeches I've heard in this chamber in the many years I've been here. I say this with great affection. It was one of the most passionate speeches I've heard him give.

So I say: more of this. More of this principle of freedom to choose. Now just put it into absolutely everything else in the legislative agenda put forward!

But I know I'm going to be disappointed. I consider this to be the high-water mark of the member for Moore's career. He has reached his Everest.

Sadly, I doubt it's going to go much further up from here, but that's okay. I nonetheless want to congratulate him, because he's right. When you've got so many people in communities around the country catching up at a pub and enjoying a beer on their terms, good luck to them.

It's their life and their choice. Of course, it's great to have people be sociable. But we also need to remind ourselves that you don't need to have alcohol to be sociable.

Even the member for Fremantle, with his puritan lifestyle, is sometimes sociable as well, and there are other members on the other side of the chamber who are also sociable despite not necessarily choosing their way through to conversation. I know I'm casting aspersions on the member, and if it offends him I will, on this occasion, withdraw. I'm happy to do so.

But I do support the Excise Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 and the Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025. We support these bills for simple reasons. It's because we fully believe (1) in lower taxes, (2) in the freedom to choose and (3) in the idea that it's good to be able to give reprieve, as the shadow minister for financial services believes himself in saying that the coalition actively pursued exactly the same sorts of measures in the lead-up to the election.

We fundamentally believe that we shouldn't be punitive; we shouldn't seek to chase down or to hunt or to haunt people for simply going about living their lives. It's very different from, for instance, the approach the current government is taking in other areas of excise regulation, where they're active participants in fuelling organised crime, criminal gangs and the firebombing of small businesses—something that is utterly insane, but that is exactly where we are right now.

So I'm glad to see, again, that the member for Moore, the member for Fremantle and other members understand that perhaps, sometimes, just increasing taxes in perpetuity isn't necessarily the best policy answer. Sometimes it can have an unintended consequence too. Anyway, let's get off the firebombing of small businesses and the fuelling of organised criminal gangs by the Commonwealth government, and let's look at breweries and who will benefit from this legislation.

Let's go to the good electorate of Goldstein. In the electorate of Goldstein, we actually have, believe it or not, in or around the vicinity, quite a few local breweries. We always want to cheers people who are backing themselves to be successful.

In Cheltenham, there's Amber Brewery. It's a business that began as a dream shared between two mates, Kieron Hewitt and Alex Kutlajevs, who turned their passion for quality beer into a thriving local brewery. In Cheltenham, we've got Bad Shepherd Brewing Co., which I've been to.

It was founded by husband-and-wife team Dereck and Diti Hales. Dereck started out brewing award-winning home brews while Diti, with her love of quality dining, American-style barbeque and expertise in brand marketing, helped turn that passion into a genuine community venue. Also in Moorabbin we've got the Stomping Ground brewery, which was established in 2016 by Steve Jeffares, Guy Greenstone and Justin Joiner after their success with a local taphouse in St Kilda.

In less than a decade, Stomping Ground has grown into Australia's champion large independent brewery. And we have 2 Brothers Brewery, another great local success story of hard work. Of course, it's not just those breweries, where they produce the quality liquid amber ale; it's also the local pubs, which play such an important part in the social infrastructure of our community.

I say this because it's one of the things that people perhaps don't know about my personal background: my parents were publicans. I grew up in pubs. I share the member for Moore's passion for pubs as part of the social infrastructure of the community.

They bring people together. They bring people on their terms, whether it's for their social engagements for sporting clubs or whether it's just somewhere to go, after they knock off after a long day, to be able to find their friends. We live in a free society.

Everybody finds their own place and their own home in their own different way. That's why we fully respect the important role that pubs play. I know that Ferg from the AHA will, of course, love to know that he and his industry are always in our thoughts and prayers.

I saw him on Saturday, and the first thing he talked to me about was beer excise. It's not really that surprising. He's very consistent on that and always has an ask, but that's okay because we believe in the freedom to choose, and he knows that I will always stand up for pubs because they play such an important part.

It doesn't matter which pub it is. The Sandy, in Sandringham, is an important one. One of my favourites is the McKinnon Hotel.

Not only is the food outstanding but the pulled beer is fantastic. Hotel Brighton is where I spent way too many nights during my campaign. After long days—particularly after the summer sun—I hit Hotel Brighton.

To the good folks at Hotel Brighton: keep up the great work. Believe it or not, the pub where my parents met was once called Hotel Central. It is now called the Half Moon, and it is a place that I regularly visit on Church Street, Brighton.

The Brighton Beach Hotel is a regular for many people, particularly after Saturday afternoon footy. There is Hotel New Bay in Brighton, as well—g'day to Cieran—the Bentleigh Social and the Camden Hotel in Caulfield South. These, of course, are not just places to drink but the heart of the community—places of connection, friendship and belonging.

But these businesses— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Freelander ): You seem to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of them; it's really good! Mr TIM WILSON: Deputy Speaker Freelander, you're interrupting and suggesting, somehow, that I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local pubs in my electorate in the sense that I should be embarrassed or ashamed. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Not at all.

Mr TIM WILSON: I am sorry, Deputy Speaker. I am immensely proud. I am immensely proud of the role that pubs play in the community.

There used to be more; my only devastation is that many of them went by the wayside due to property prices and where they became unviable businesses in comparison to being converted like the old Bowie pub. The current excise regime, as we all know, is unsustainable. Brewers are charged the excise, but pubs wear it in the price of kegs.

Of course, when you go to tap that keg, you want not just the freshness of the beer but the freshness, of course, of making sure that the tax rate is not punitive. Customers increasingly buy from bottle shops instead because pubs simply can't compete. That is not good for pubs.

Margins have collapsed, and many business owners are operating on the edge. We do not want pubs being unsuccessful. We will all pay a significant price as a society when pubs don't succeed.

We need them to be part of the social infrastructure of our community. This bill offers only two years of relief. It's a short-term measure, no doubt, because the government just wants it for a period so they can then try and renew it in the lead-up to the next election rather than turning around and saying to pubs, 'We're going to deliver a long-term commitment of support.' I would hope, one day, that we get to a position where pubs know they can go ahead with confidence.

They have so many other challenges—being able to get labour let alone the cost of labour, let alone the management of labour. The Labor Party makes it so impossible to manage, hire, employ and pay people properly. Then they've got to be part of selling a good product—of course, that's up to them—but also be in an environment and create the atmosphere where people want to get along and be convivial.

Tax, as often with so-called sin products, pays a huge contribution to the overall price. We already pay some of the highest excise on beer in the world, and then we add 10 per cent GST on the top—the tax on the tax. Last year alone, beer drinkers paid almost $2.4 billion in taxes to the federal government, meanwhile costs of goods, energy and wages keep rising.

It's inflation on inflation on inflation, and it's all being paid for by you, the Australian people. It's not being paid for by the Speaker or the Deputy Speaker—you never know what his habits might be—but by the Australian people. Publicans are afraid to lift prices because they can't absorb the increases.

They know that it's a challenge. Their margins are tight, their costs are rising and they don't want to pass them on because they still need people to come in and spend. If they don't, they know they'll go home.

If they go home, they don't take a cut. Their profits fall, staff hours are cut and fewer young people gain skills in hospitality. That's where pubs play such an important role as well.

It's like so many other small businesses. Small businesses, so often, are the gateway for young Australians to get their first job, to skill up, to learn discipline and to learn practice to be able to then go on and become full participants in the Australian economy. That's why we back small business every step of the way in the Liberal Party.

We understand not just that it's Australians backing themselves to be successful and to go on and offer economic opportunity and security for their families but, in addition to that, that it's the gateway for the next generation of Australians to get their first job, to learn and to grow. And, of course, if they earn an income and position themselves, one day they too may be in a position to own their own small business and write themselves into the economic success story of this great nation.

We want to make sure that we ease the pressure on pubs. We understand why they're important to our community and we understand why they're particularly important to the Goldstein community. We want to take the pressure off them.

That's certainly the message we've been getting from the local pubs and breweries in Goldstein. Kieron Hewitt from Amber Brewery and St Andrews brewery has made this point. How can you run a business when the government changes the rules every six months to three years?

It's completely destroyed the industry thriving three or four years ago. They've had to line up to be able to expand into non-beer products to be able to survive. With the excise tax coming in at the same time as interest rates, people just don't have the money and can't afford to go out anymore.

Government needs a commercial reality check if it wants to understand how to fix these problems, and breweries, of course, are the ones who are being hit. Whether customers have noticed or responded to the price increases really comes down to competition. Of course, we know that there are large brewers internationally who are flooding the market to try and make sure that they can compete and take the biggest chunk of what is actually a diminishing market share.

So that leaves a lot of the Australian brewers doing the best they can to compete, but the government has largely undercut them by increasing taxes and made it harder for them to be successful. The reality is we need a serious fix now that makes sure that we provide a long-term solution. So, while I welcome this bill, the reality is my natural sympathy will always be with lower taxes; it will always be with lower taxes, and it doesn't matter what it is, my position, Deputy Speaker Freelander and Member for Fremantle, it will always be for lower— Mr Josh Wilson interjecting— Mr TIM WILSON: The member for Fremantle is interjecting.

He was making a remark that I wasn't in the last parliament. That is why he should be so happy I am back in this chamber, because it will mean the lower tax nirvana of the future has begun. Similar sentiments were expressed by Dereck Hales from Bad Shepherd, who said how, importantly, beer tax remains the single largest barrier they have in their industry and for private Australian owned businesses.

It increases every single year and the gap between excise and the WET scheme for wine has become nearly laughable. Of course, this is one of the big challenges with alcohol taxation overall. We know that one of my other preferred tipples, at different stages, depending on the time of day, is gin.

As the member for Fremantle clearly—but my reputation precedes me. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: When do you start that? Breakfast?

Mr Josh Wilson: One of our first conversations was about your collection. Mr TIM WILSON: And so, one of the biggest problems now with the gin and spirits industry is the scale of the excise. The distilled spirits industry in this country is literally going broke under this government.

There are so many distilleries that have collapsed, closed or have had to be sold off to foreign interests. This is not a good outcome. Australian craft spirits, like Australian craft beer, should be an industry—a success—that goes on, employs and is connected directly to tourism and economic opportunity.

This government is killing these industries needlessly. And tax is the key driver of it, because it creates huge problems for financing and huge problems for being able to manage the capacity to employ people. It also becomes the biggest barrier for starting a new business, when people can see a pathway to be able to produce a product to be successful and they want to back themselves.

I know the member for Monash agrees with me on that. We understand why this bill's important, but the industry is saying they're not sure why it's limited. They don't understand why it's time stamped and what they want is a longer commitment of certainty.

All I hope for is that, in our considerations over the next two years—of course, this goes to the coalition and to the government—we give the industry long-term certainty around how we make sure to reduce the overall burden of tax so that we can have a spirits, beer and alcohol industry that we can be proud of—one that is not just successful in selling to Australians but selling successfully to the world.