Pre-Mixed Drink Taxes in Australia

reply to post by Toy_soldier

I'm a bartender..... They are well in their rights to have as many drinks as they choose.

Then you're not a good bartender.

Here in Melbourne, a person is considered legally intoxicated after consuming one drink. It is also an offense to serve alcohol to an intoxicated person and to have an intoxicated person on licenced premises. Confusing, I know. But those are the facts.

You should have known that.

CT

seriously i don't see any point to drinking? I stopped drinking when i came to this conclusion and I do live a healthy fulfilled life.

I'm a club promoter and also music business student and so you can understand that I am around alcohol a lot of the time every week. I also used to work at a hotel that owned a club next door to it. Every weekend when the club was the busiest we used to always have issues with fights and assaults. Truthfully we had a fight every of every night and a rape incident at least once a month. I've seen some scary incidents involving alcohol and drug abuse. Numerous times I've had to call up the ambulance over people overdosing on a mixture of alcohol an drugs.

I'm not saying it's a good thing. But you have a choice at the end of the day to make the decision to drink wisely or stupidly.

I don't see the point of this tax hike. It's your choice in how you drink. If you do 'f' up then it's your fault and your problem to deal with.

Originally posted by nahsik
Every weekend when the club was the busiest we used to always have issues with fights and assaults. Truthfully we had a fight every of every night and a rape incident at least once a month. I've seen some scary incidents involving alcohol and drug abuse. Numerous times I've had to call up the ambulance over people overdosing on a mixture of alcohol an drugs.

That sounds more like a problem with your club and club management rather than Alcohol.

The Clubs I go to rarely have fights, Think I’ve only ever seen 1. Yet everyone in the club is pretty smashed, Should I decided to head to Scruffy Murphy’s (only once in a while) I’m garenteed to see a fight or see someone attacked with a broken bottle.

It’s the clubs who can’t manage it properly. Also, most of the club attacks or fights actually have nothing to do with teenage binge drinking.

Most teenagers drink in the suburbs near their homes in a park, and they drink the cheapest thing they can get, which is beer or that cheap wine. They will still binge drink, all the tax is going to do is annoy people who go out to drink and can handle their drink, it will also cause me to lie on my tax return – have to get it back somehow.

If some teenager binge drinks and dies because of it, that’s bad parenting, not my problem and I don’t see why I or anyone else should be taxed more because of it.

Mikey

When I was a young teenager the average age to start binging was thirteen-fourteen, and this was the majority. Young teenagers, if they have a will to drink, will find a way to drink. If they simply cannot afford to pay for pre-mixed drinks they may, as someone else noted, steal the cash from convenient sources. Also, young teenagers could save their pocket-money that is meant for food, skip the food, and spend it on something they would rather, such as pre-mixed drinks. Which, as we all know, skipping food for the most of the day before 'the night out' will get you feeling the effects sooner.

A trick that was used back in the day on the nights when cash was tight, was buying a carton of cheap, cheap wine. Also known as a 'goon sack' to many. This is a four litre sack of approx. 10% alcohol costing ten dollars or so. This is enough to get two-three people blind for the night. If the taste of the wine was too harsh, we would just buy a few litres of juice and cover the taste by mixing one and one together.

The government obviously was in the minority, and did not drink underage. Rudd should realise that culture is culture.

Also, as a 'p.s' the Australian government, should take a good look at the drinking amounts of other countries such as Ireland and England, and take note in how many pubs are located per kilometre compared to over here in Australia.

I'm a frequent visitor to Australia and was amazed when I saw what the price of these drinks had gone up to - shocking.

There was nothing I liked more than having a cheeky little Bungaberg & coke while I waited for my order from the fish & chip shop - it's taken the gloss off that experience from now on.

Oh yes, I guess I'm the sort of person the govenment was aiming at with the tax - I'm 42 and work in investment banking.

I'm afriad to say that your govenment really bends you over and puts it up you in every way with the taxes there - bad luck.

Anyway, enjoy drinking responsibly and try to keep smiling Australia !

I admit to not having read through the other responses... but I am an Aussie and I think the tax is absolute b/s.

1. As the OP mentioned, the tax has not gone on the bottle of liquor... Which is stupid really, because;

a) more drinks per bottle for less price

b) the pre-mixed drinks have a standardised level of alcohol.

it's only a matter of time before kids figure out they get more "bang for their buck" with a bottle, at least with cans they know how much alcohol is in them. 90% of young adults i know (talking in the 18 - 30 bracket here) have no idea how much a standard drink is, and will often put the equivilent of 3-5 standard drinks in a glass they mix themselves.

When I was going through high school a few years back, most kids would only take a 6 pack of UDLs, "Woodies" or a 4 pack of cruisers to a party. This is probably 12 standard drinks at the most. If they start taking a bottle of alcohol, this is sometimes 2 times the amount of alcohol.

The drunker you get, the more happy you get with the bottle, and end up tipping up to 1/6 of the bottle into your glass (speaking from experience )

2. I know alot of "older" people who enjoy a drink in the evening, middle class people working honest 9-5 jobs, and combined with the costs of fuel, food, mortgages, raising a family, medical expenses etc., their only leisurely acitivity has become unaffordable. Not saying that drinking is the healthiest thing in the world, but with everything becoming more "doom and gloom", their one little escape is becoming a guilty pleasure.

I'm a 21 year old female, and I find "girly drinks" disgusting personally, I prefer beer or red wine.

Most people I know who drink those "girly drinks" are males