Despite the recommendations made in the Henry Tax Review, the Federal Government has to this time resisted calls from the anti-alcohol lobby to alter the means by which wine is taxed in Australia Ð with a 29% so-called Wine Equalisation Tax before the 10% GST. This time around it’s the National Alliance for Action on Alcohol, a group representing 50 health and research organisations, leading the charge to implement the Henry Tax Review’s deliberations, with its co-chairman Mike Daube telling an Adelaide newspaper that if a volumetric tax was introduced, binge drinking would fall. The National Alliance for Action on Alcohol, which includes academics, surgeons associations and cancer councils, also wants health warnings placed on alcohol labels.Winemakers Federation of Australia (WFA) chief executive Stephen Strachan has long maintained the view that the industry does not support any measure that uses tax to address alcohol abuse because they don’t work. ‘There’s a whole lot of evidence that points to the fact that consumers switch beverages (if taxes are increased). If you put the tax up on wine, yes, there will be less wine consumed, but there will be more of something else consumed.’Strachan has also added that the Government has said it would not look at altering tax on wine while the industry was going through and dealing with the issues of the grape surplus. ‘Those issues are still prevalent’, he said.
