300% Increase In Beer And Wine Taxes (proposed)

[Lobsta]

Take a deep breath people, calm yourselves down. No good ranting and raving over something we don't know about.

We are about to get a Budget allowing a proposed $20 a week tax cut for the average family that will slug that same family more than that in excises. Fuel will soon be $2.00 a litre - road deaths from car accidents will decrease but bicycle accidents will more than take up that slack. Cigarettes at $20 a packet won't bother me as I don't smoke but we will soon get home grown tobacco clubs similar to homebrewing clubs starting up for the educated smokers. Or cigarettes that will recycle what is exhaled to give you more bang from the butt.

Soon we will need to organise ourselves into political organisations - think gun lobby style groups. Personally I will be prepared to stand for the Senate on an independant platform and when elected will shout (figuritively of course) loud and clearly (unless pissed, then I'll slur for effect) and rant and rave and binge until I get my ten year Qantas Gold Card and my 27.5% superannuation.

You have my word. Its as good as Krudd's.


edit : spelling

I'd vote for you mate.

maybe AHB should start their own political party. we would have to have people in the majority of australian electorates. take the labour government by storm! fill the halls of parliament with cries to give incentives to hop and grain farmers!! i propose a full stage political upheaval!!! AHB - the party looking out for your fridge!!!

either that, or we could sit back, brew some excise free beer, and laugh at the poor sods paying 60 bucks for a carton of mega swill beer.

Lobby

 

[Lukes]

Time to riot ??

12 years to go, it's almost the 20's again..........

 

[matti]

Tax hike on booze will not stop binge drinking, stop alcoholism or deter minors from obtaining liquor.
They will all have to pay more for quality liquor and be drawn to worse or cheaper alternative to dull their brain.
Stilling your own will be much more common and impossible to police.

Taxes on booze does not stop abusive behaviour of any kind.
It is a decease of a modern society. "The more the merrier" does no longer apply.

The government is managing this the only way they can.
"If we are going to manage the cost of alcohol abuse and related offences" ALL drinkers have to pay!

Sorry for the rant but I thought Rudd was a good bloke.
He is a sneaky socialist with a high IQ.
A capitalistic unionist, look out Carl Marx....


can't help my self :lol:

 

[geoffi]

Sorry, but I really think everybody is getting their knickers in a twist over not much here.

I just think this ain't gonna happen. Remember, this is a few people appointed to a committee making noises. Not government policy. Not likely ever to be government policy.

It would be politically impossible, even if every doctor in every emergency department in Australia jumped up and down and demanded it. There are a lot fewer of them than there are drinkers. Any increases in booze excise always get bad publicity in Australia. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some rise. There always is. But Jesus sake, a 300% rise? Surely it's a total fantasy.

Would greatly increasing the price or decreasing availability of booze lead to fewer alcohol-related social problems? Probably, just like banning cars would reduce car accidents. Prohibition in the US did lead to fewer alcohol-related medical problems. But in exchange they got Al Capone and entrenched organised crime (compare current insane anti-drug laws).

But when it comes right down to it, a few more teenage corpses is a price Australian society will cheerfully pay if it means booze prices won't rise too much.

Oh, and come on the republic!

 

[Linz]

AHB - the party looking out for your fridge!!!

Shouldnt it be more like

"AHB - the party looking out of your beer fridge!!!"

 

[Stuster]

It's all the fault of those bl**dy binge drinkers. h34r: :lol:

 

[Fatgodzilla]

It's all the fault of those bl**dy binge drinkers. h34r: :lol:

Better to crawl than binge :chug:

 

[newguy]

Shouldnt it be more like

"AHB - the party looking out of your beer fridge!!!"

I prefer "AHB - the party with its ass sticking out of your beer fridge."

 

[Uncle Fester]

Anyway, who the hell is Kevin "too pissed to remember the strippers" Rudd to tell any of the rest of Australia how they should or should not approach binge drinking?

 

[geoffi]

Anyway, who the hell is Kevin "too pissed to remember the strippers" Rudd to tell any of the rest of Australia how they should or should not approach binge drinking?

At least he can speak from a position of experience.

I find it more grating when, say, celibate priests lecture people about their sex lives.

 

[Uncle Fester]

At least he can speak from a position of experience.

I find it more grating when, say, celibate priests lecture people about their sex lives.

Thene there are the "supposedly celibate" priests who can talk from a position of experience :huh:

 

[PostModern]

But when it comes right down to it, a few more teenage corpses is a price Australian society will cheerfully pay if it means booze prices won't rise too much.

Darwin's law. Somehow I managed to live long enough to procreate! Phew!

Better to crawl than binge :chug:

One until the other

 

[geoffi]

Thene there are the "supposedly celibate" priests who can talk from a position of experience :huh:

I had considered qualifying that statement. I've known of more than a few 'celibates' who've spent plenty of time 'on the job'.

 

[barry2]

Why did they increase the tax on the alcopops a few weeks before the Budget when they could easily have left it until then? Perhaps to get an idea of the public response to such an increase before fine tuning other liquor tax increases.

 

[Mantis]

Why did they increase the tax on the alcopops a few weeks before the Budget when they could easily have left it until then? Perhaps to get an idea of the public response to such an increase before fine tuning other liquor tax increases.

Yep, tell em %300, then when we only put it up %50 then they will say "phew" and accept it.

 

[geoff_tewierik]

Why did they increase the tax on the alcopops a few weeks before the Budget when they could easily have left it until then? Perhaps to get an idea of the public response to such an increase before fine tuning other liquor tax increases.

Maybe, but I reckon it was more a chance to a appeal to the namby pambys who've been kicking up a fuss lately as well as pad the budget out by a few more billion in revenue.

 

[joecast]

Anyway, who the hell is Kevin "too pissed to remember the strippers" Rudd to tell any of the rest of Australia how they should or should not approach binge drinking?

and surely if the booze had been more expensive he never would have drank so much. thats the logic here right?

 

[barry2]

Yep, tell em %300, then when we only put it up %50 then they will say "phew" and accept it.

The public response to the alcopops increase has been such that the Treasurer may be encouraged to go a bit further say 150% especially on wine casks.
We will all know in two weeks.

 

[Darren]

I feel good about all this. I was worried I might have been a binge drinker but I have never had an alcopop so I am OK. Phew!!

cheers

Darren

 

[geoffi]

Whatever harm is done by boozing teenagers and their taste for alcoholic lolly water, I reckon it will pale into insignificance compared to the long-term financial consequences of their insatiable appetite for mobile phones and ever-changing ringtones.

Now that's a crisis, but tabloid TV prefers images of teenage girls spewing in gutters.