We have an on-going health disaster in the Territory largely fuelled by the availability of vast quantities of industrially-produced ethanol but we can't do anything about it because of the impact on our pensioners, who deserve a far better deal than they're currently getting.
Based on the Carbon Tax debate, one would have thought that the extra revenue from a floor price (I'm assuming that this would be achieved by changing the way alcohol sales are taxed) could have been evenly split between expenditure on indigenous health and raising the age pension to the point where the elderly, who definitely deserve it, could afford to buy semi-decent quality bottled wine.
Then there was the article in the Sydney Morning Herald linked from the Daily Wine News that suggests they're selling 3.4 million cases of Sauvignon Blanc per year in this country, and most of that seems to be sourced from New Zealand, where producers seem to be (and I'm quoting from the Australian Tax Office website here entitled to a rebate of 29% of the selling price of the wine.
There's more on the same subject here.
I'm not an expert on these things but it looks awfully like we've got a continuing glut due to sales of cheap imported wine that attracts what amounts to a subsidy. Strange.
Those matters might explain why I'm able to buy something like this rather good Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc for $7.50 (the '09 back in February) or $10.85 (the '10 in an end of financial year sale).
