Wine is the only one of Australia’s top 17 export industries that is a manufactured finished product, making it the most successful manifestation of the ‘Clever Country’ notion. Yet Australian wine is the most heavily taxed wine industry on earth. Now those responsible for that now want to do something to help. The Federal Government has commissioned a review of the wine tourism and export industries to discover new ways of driving them forward. The blindingly dumb thing about the announcement of this research, to be conducted by ACIL Consulting, is that it is to be directed towards the 1,400 small to medium producers ‘that may not have benefited as much as bigger players from Australia’s wine export boom of the past decade’. The answer is to be found on the lips of each and every one of 1,400 managers: change the basis of the way wine is taxed in this country. But it is of course much easier to bury the simplicity and truth of that message under yet another review.
