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The two major parties made commitments to freeze the indexation on the excise tax on draught beer only for 2 years from 1 July 2025 – that is beer sold over a bar – rather than in a can or a bottle.

In those announcements both parties have referenced the benefit going to small breweries when the reality is that the winners from the 2-year freeze on draught excise are the two large foreign owned breweries who dominate the pubs and clubs tap space in Australia. NOT the small independent brewers who are either forced to build their own hospitality venues or to try and compete in the retail space with bottles or cans.

You only need to look at recent commentary by the Australian Hotels Association to see who the winners of the draught freeze is where The Shout reported that “pubs are happy”.

Australians are sick of duopolies that set pricing and take away consumer choice. You only have to look at the supermarket inquiry to see how fed up they are.

We are at a loss to explain why either side of the aisle is consciously making it harder for Australians to choose independent beer when they both claim to be unashamedly pro-small businesses.

And sure, Labor will claim that they will help raise the level of the excise remission threshold by $50,000 but that promise doesn’t commence until mid-2026.

The Australian Financial Review recently reported that the Australian Hotels Association are running a red-blue strategy devised at a meeting in Melbourne.  

“The meeting of AHA leaders, as well as representatives of its corporate partners – largely alcohol and gambling  came as polls showed that neither Labor nor the Coalition would secure enough seats to form a majority government at the federal election due on or before May 17.”

To be clear that does not include ALL alcohol.  As the AFR stated the AHA’s members “include more than 5,000 pubs and hotels, and its major corporate partners include poker machine giants Aristocrat, Ainsworth Game Technology and Keno, as well as beverage giants Carlton & United Breweries, Lion Beer Australia, Treasury Wine Estates and Diageo, owner of Guinness and Smirnoff.”

By contrast, the members of the Independent Brewers Association voted in 2024 to amend the constitution to confirm that our members do profit from gambling.

48% of independent breweries struggle to retain profitability yet we contribute approx. $3.53 billion annually to the nation’s economy and employ over half the sector as our operations are less automated and more hands on. Without help now we will absolutely see more Australian owned breweries close their doors.

And yet here we are. Independent small brewing businesses do all the right things but we don’t have gambling revenue or the backing of foreign multinationals. Is it any wonder why small Australian businesses can’t get meaningful tax reform? 

Labor and the Coalition can claim that they care about Australian businesses but the foreign owned beer duopoly and their powerful lobbying partners can continue to set the agenda for what Australians drink, what they pay – and apparently what our tax settings are!

With more independent candidates standing in this election – we are hopeful that those candidates that want to talk about meaningful tax reform for small businesses and commit to sensible reforms to support small Australian owned independent breweries. Indies supporting Indies? Let’s hope so.