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Australians could say goodbye to cheap pub beer if a radical tax hike proposed to the Turnbull government by anti-alcohol lobbyists goes ahead.According to Fairfax, The tax on all alcohol would increase 10 per cent, with the tax on draught beer (which has been discounted since 2001) would rise to match the levies on packaged beer sold at bottle shops.That means a five-fold increase in tax on light beer in pubs, double the tax on mid-strength ale, and a 50 percent increase on the tax on full-strength lager. According to a pre-budget submission by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE), Australians would pay $2.9 billion in extra taxes and their alcohol intake would drop by nearly 10 percent."More than 5,500 lives are lost every year and more than 157,000 people are hospitalised," FARE points out on its website, "making alcohol one of our nation’s greatest preventative health challenges."The organisation's Chief Executive, Michael Thorne, told 4BC Newstalk that the proposal “is all about trying to reduce the alcohol toll in Australia and we know that price is such a determinative factor in how much people consume.
"We also know that the taxpayers are really picking up the bill for Australia’s drinking.“There’s a gap of about $5-6 billion between how much tax we collect and what it costs government and taxpayers to actually deliver to pick up the pieces of that drinking. We want to prevent people from dying,” Thorne said.Melbourne already has the eighth most expensive price for beer globally, according to 2017 research from Deustche Bank. Sydney comes in at 20th, in a draw with Spain.