Alcopop taxes stay in government coffers

“Family First”-Senator Steve Fielding, who cast the deciding vote on the first alcopop bill, said the forecasts bore out his decision to oppose the tax hike.

“Now Treasury agrees what everybody else knew – that there’s definitely substitution,” he was reported as saying. “I think the public knows the alcopop tax is a dud. It’s not working. It’s been in place for a year and there’s not less street alcohol-fuelled violence, there’s not less admission to our hospital wards.”

After a year of turmoil, manufacturers and distributors of alcopops in Australia are still facing uncertain times. A “past, present, future” review of the situation, suggests that the drinks industry had never seen such an attack on one type of alcohol without prior consultation.

If similar Government intervention had occurred in another industry the public reaction would have been different but the focus on alcopops and binge-drinking gained immediate and relentless media attention.