For a while you could hardly take wine from the front pages. The potentially inflammatory Kingston Estate debacle which has led to likely prosecution against this Riverlands wine maker has sent a ripple of fear throughout those in the industry whose future is likely to depend on wine exports. A further scandal of this nature, even though it was in reality little more than a storm in a teacup, and Australia’s export reputation could suffer horrendously. Now the dust has settled on this issue, one very serious question remains: how did it take the actions of two American wine students to detect and report on the addition of a banned additive to Australian wine? Surely the system developed by the wine industry to ensure that our wine exports are tested and are free from such taints should have proven robust enough to prevent this from ever becoming an issue. And what is silver nitrate, the banned additive in question, doing on the premises of an Australian winery? Clearly those regulating these aspects of the industry have to work harder to ensure these occurrences are not repeated, for the questionable activities of a small percentage of wineries can clearly threaten the livelihoods of everyone else. The Federal Government is obviously very keen to satisfy the community that the introduction of the GST will ultimately benefit everyone, or that’s what its new multi-squillion dollar advertising campaign would have us believe. Justifying the expense involved in this campaign, Minister Reith has said that the public has a right to have the new system explained to them so they can make adequate preparations. Nowhere have I seen any reference made in this campaign to the latest albatross to be hitched by the Federal Government to the wine industry’s neck, the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET). With only weeks to go before the introduction of the new tax system I am astonished by the lack of knowledge shown by the wine buying public towards WET. The public deserves to know why wine has been singled out for special treatment and why the total tax take from wine will increase by around 15% while virtually all other products whose sales tax was formerly higher then the 10% GST will contribute less. Or is the WET just too hard to justify?
