A legendary Australian brewery is closing forever after 145 years – and there’s a very good reason why it should make you furious.
What happens when the government decides that it’s the moral police and doesn’t like a common Australian pastime, so it taxes it into oblivion?
No, it’s not a joke waiting for a punchline. Far from it, actually.
Businesses close and people lose their jobs, is what happens.
Brewing giant Lion this week announced it would be closing the James Boag brewery in Launceston after 145 years of beer production.
Boag’s has always been brewed in Tasmania with Tassie water for Tassie drinkers, including varieties brewed specifically for Tasmania and not available elsewhere – and supply for the mainland has, in recent years, been brewed on the mainland.
Now, all Boag’s beers will be brewed on the mainland and exported to Tasmania.
The rot began with mainland brewing, done to cut down on transport costs.
Fair enough, all businesses have to look after the bottom line. But the problem is it’s becoming harder and harder to run a business in Australia – particularly in the alcohol industry.
My friends in the wine sector frequently tell me how hard things are at the moment, particularly keeping a cellar door open and affordable.
Things are no better in beer.
Independent Brewers Association chief executive Sabrina Kunz told the ABC that the closure of Boag’s Launceston operation was down to the cost of doing business.
“Our breweries are simply closing down, we’ve lost something like 80 breweries over the last two years nationally,” she said.
She pointed to the alcohol tax as something that needed to change – and she is right.
Lion pointed to declining beer consumption as one of the main reasons it decided to close Boag’s Launceston brewery. And why might that be?
The federal government has more or less orchestrated this outcome by making the cost of doing business in Australia extremely prohibitive, especially for smaller operations, and those in the alcohol industry have to deal with taxes on top of that which make their products more expensive.
Wine, beer and spirits all have different levels of tax applied to them, with spirits facing the highest rate followed by beer and then wine.
