I fully support the very precarious notion of this tax reform
FFS that website is really badly put together.
you have neglected to make the obvious fking comparisons, eg the small winerys tax rules, and the fact breweries are closing due to small profits.
The fact remains that these are not new tax rules that the industry is being crippled by, and you fail to therefore present an actual argument as to why the fking thing should be changed.
get a professional in this field to get a campaign together,
Yet another demonstration of why the industry needs a national peak body run by people who know what they are doing.
Hey All, including Sinka. Just thought I'd reply to some of the great and passionate thoughts put up. The problem with getting a National Peak body together is a) the bigger brewers, e.g LC out west, BT in newcastle to name a couple and those owned by mega breweries e.g. JS and MBay don't really care cos their volumes are so large and out of our reality that they are very profitable anyway. If we are successful and they save $500k per year in excise tax, it is only a drop in the ocean for them B) secondly the really small guys - brewers producing less than 500,000 litres are often one man operations, and that man running around like a hairy arse fly trying to make ends meet, let alone trying to set-up and coordinate a national body
.There actually are State associations and these band together as national group - best we can do for now as we don't have the money to pay for professional staff. Sorry. The wineries spent something like $6 million on their campaign and it took them 5 years. We have already been going for years on our campaign and have spent something like $20k. Reason ? Because the campaign is being run and funded by tiny breweries producing 50,000 - 150,000 litres each per annum on average. No dough.
The real detail of our argument is not presented on the website as such - but you can check it out by reading the petition. We bang on about wineries and the plight of small breweries there. The website is NOT, repeat NOT, a tool to convince Government of our argument. The website is a tool to get a fking massive national petition signed. The real work done in convincing Government is actually visiting the MPs in their offices in Canberra and presenting the whole fking story about wineries and all that stuff face to face - and visiting the people who are actually going to make the decision.e.g. the Assistant Treasurer and the Finance Minister. This is what we have been doing and continue to do. BUT - we need to back this up with a WHOLE HEAP OF NOISE comiing from Back-Benchers and the general public. How do we do this?....through a formal national petition tabled in Canberra and through letters from MPs being sent to the Assistant Treasurer outlining the plight and our request.
Yeah, maybe the website does not explain the full detail....but lotsa people tune out soon as soon as they see fking great whack of text. So this was the decision about the website
Remember this is a campaign with very low levels of money. In saying that we do have a professional lobbyist helping us over the past 3 years - and I'll tell yas what, we were a bees dick away from getting this thing through last Coalition budget in mid 07. So the point is we have to keep plugging away and keep making noise and show the Governement that we are not going away.
Yeah the video is outdated.....but the issue and the details are the same.
About the kegs and other issues related to excise tax....our professional advice was not to ask for too many things at once. Let's get one thing through and then once we are on the board we can continue to request updates. Remember the wineries keep asking for stuff and getting regular updates to their legislation. If we ask for too much or too many items it is likely to be rejected out of hand.
Lastly, and sorry for the diatribe, don't be too hard on the WA brewers or your local watering hole that does not have petition up yet. This campaign and website was initiated from Victoria - basically once the website was up we used this as a tool to get everyone on board - including WA brewers and venues. Point is they were only notified Monday and respones are still trickling in - same goes for local venues. We're trying very hard tp rpomote the campaign, bit we're also trying to run the day to day business of our operations and crank out some beer at this busy time of year.
Don't forget that one day's production at a CUB site would be equivalent to a years production at one of our small breweries.
Drink Less, Drink Better
Holgate
), I would like to support the campaign by doing more than signing a petition. I would buy a well designed T-shirt, but I really think the best way to be heard is to address the relevant MP(s) directly. I think it would be a good idea if someone on the inside of the campaign put together a well-considered letter template that punters like me could sign and send to Parliament House. This has more impact than a signature on a contestible petition.
