New Beer Tariffs Impact Our Local Hotspots

The Kiama Bugle, 9 February, 2024.

Online version.

Ever rising cost of alcohol

John Stapleton

09 February 2024, 3:23 PM

The ever rising cost of living is driving everyone to despair, but if you want to drink away your sorrows, as of this week you’ll be paying more even for that. Prices are up this week thanks to an increase in the alcohol excise, averaging a 50 cent jump on a schooner, depending on the venue and your chosen tipple. 

Bars, clubs, restaurants and your average punter are all feeling the impact, nowhere more so than in Kiama’s much loved venues.

“I used to come to this pub four times a week,” said Dave Fisher, 52, who has been drinking at the historic Grand Hotel, founded in 1891, since he was a teenager. “Now I come once a week, and usually during happy hour.

“You don’t socialise as much, I just stay at home instead. Now I just don't have that person to person contact. You need to get out and do things, not just be stuck at home. 

“You don’t see so many locals now, they don’t come down every day. People are just generally talking about how dear everything is.”

The latest increase in beer and alcohol prices is linked to the twice yearly indexation of alcohol excise. This year, with everyone struggling to pay their bills, the increase has caused a storm across the nation’s mainstream media and amongst the fed up general public.

Australia now ranks as one of the most expensive countries in the world to live, coming in amongst the top five for alcohol and tobacco taxes, as well as electricity and housing prices. The escalating cost of living is proving a major headache for the Albanese government, which must face the electorate by early next year. 

Chief Executive of the Brewers Association John Preston said the tax on a beer of schooner had gone up by ten percent in under a year. “These new record increases, the largest in over 30 years, have driven Australia’s beer tax rate to the third highest in the world. Only Norway and Finland tax beer at a higher rate. 

“These taxes are out of control.”

In essence the ever increasing taxes are killing the host, as many people can no longer afford to go out for a drink. The tax rakes in around 2.5 billion a year. 

“The increases come as Treasury was forced to revise down its estimates for revenue from beer tax at the Budget in October,” Mr Preston said. 

The Brewers Association is begging the Government to freeze the tax on beer sold in bottle shops for two years and halve the beer tax paid on tap beer in pubs and clubs.

“Venues are telling us that the record increases are making it more difficult to get people back through the door. We don’t think that these rate increases are delivering any more revenue for the Treasury. They are just hurting beer drinkers and small businesses.”

Down at the Kiama Inn Hotel Chris White, 56, who has worked in pubs and clubs for the past 36 years, said the ever increasing prices are having a profound impact on Australian society. 

“All sorts of things happen in pubs, not just a few blokes like us sitting around with a beer,” he said. “Weddings, wakes after a funeral. It is a community thing. People come for the raffles, to see their friends, find out if someone has been sick, for social events, music. To look for work. Retired people come for their bingo, to have a cheap meal.

“Overall people are starting to go to bottle shops and drinking at home.”

And as everyone knows, drinking at home alone is a very bad idea. 

Mark Domino, 60, a local wharfie and a regular at the Kiama Inn Hotel, said people just wanted to come to the pub to relax, socialise, drink with friends and not worry about the beer prices. 

“More people are drinking at home, but you don’t have the connection. The rising prices are having a negative effect on the country.”