Kiwis Leaving Us High And Dry

[icyfroth]

Yes, Australian tax payers subsidise kiwi wine makers, and not just by drinking their wine. In the 2012-13 financial year, the Australian government wrote out cheques for a total of $23 million and sent them to 213 New Zealand wine companies. According to the AFR, the total for the last financial year will be higher.

With the latest year yet to be added, the government has paid Kiwi wineries $122 million since 2005. You’d think they least they could do in return would be to let us win the Bledisloe Cup occasionally. 

Australians gargled about NZ$372 million worth of Kiwi wine last year, mostly savvy blanc, some 28 per cent of New Zealand’s wine exports. The cunning blighters found a grape variety that grew well there with a distinctive flavour and that we collectively like the taste of, so they went ahead and made heaps of the stuff.

Combine the nonsense of a wine tax subsidiary gone crazy and an industry producing wine for not much and producing too much of it, you begin to see that the Australian wine industry is in need of a major overhaul, from tax to trough.

Like many of our agricultural industries, wine is something that took off and worked well, and thus soon attracted many more producers wanting to cash in.

Instead of letting market factors take their course in winnowing out the uncompetitive, various governments fiddled about with one type of subsidy or another and finished up doing nobody any good. Except the Kiwis. And that is outrageous.

Entire Article Here

Geez do we have to subsidise everyones industry while our own go down the gurgler?

[cherry*135]

Cheaper than a few of Abbott initiated Royal Commisions which come up with nothing that wasn't already known.

[cherry*135]

Some NZ wineries are Australian owned.. the subsidy money is still being kept 'in the family' there.

Looks like the subsidy is open to rorting in Australia anyway.

July 2013

One of Australia's largest wine companies says Australian winemakers are producing too much wine because of tax subsidies which are blighting the industry.

Treasury Wine Estates chief executive David Dearie says Australia's Wine Equalisation Tax is widely rorted.

Treasury Wine Estates owns more than 80 brands internationally, including the Penfolds, Lindeman's, Rosemount Estate and Wolf Blass brands in Australia, as well as New Zealand's Matua Valley.

The ABC reports the company recently dumped $A35 million worth of wine from its inventory in the United States as part of a total writedown of $A160 million.

Mr Dearie said Australia's 29% tax on the wholesale price of wine can include rebates of up to $A500,000 for small wineries.

"It is widely rorted, underpins the excess supply that has blighted Australia wine and is enjoyed with relish by our competitors across the Tasman."

Mr Dearie said the rebate cost around $A200 million in 2008 - 2009, the rebate is forecast to hit $A310 million in 2015 - 2016.

He said that should dismay the wine industry and Australian taxpayers.

Instead of subsidies, Mr Dearie said the industry should be working with government to identify new investments to rebuild 'brand Australia' in international markets and entice new consumers to the cellar doors.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/business/214858/tax-subsidies-blighting-australian-wine-industry-winer...

[cherry*135]

From the link in the op.

And the Australian wine industry thinks this is outrageous. The Winemakers Federal of Australia doesn’t see the playing field as level anyway thanks to lower labour costs in NZ, but I suspect what really riles them is the success of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc is grabbing so much of the Australian white wine market and the danger that the Kiwis are going to succeed again with the Pinot Noir grape.

[the_great_she_elephant]

Now that there are only the two of us at home and we are not big drinkers. Mr Elephant and I have taken to buying piccolo'(185 ml) bottles from our local Dan Murphy's.Tthere arent many varieties vailable in that small size but  Marlborough Estate (NZ) do a Sauvignon Blanc and  and I'm here to tell you it's a pretty good drop.

[lionrose.7]

I have a couple of glasses of NZ Shingle Preak Chardonnay on a Saturday

.

Some times when I have steak I drink Mateus Rose made Portugal, very nice.

[jean2579]

This is my kind of thread. Long may wine live, at least while I can still gurgle it.

[2106greencat]

bl***dy kiwi's........

ex pat kiwi/canadian

[icyfroth]

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@2106greencat wrote:

bl***dy kiwi's........

ex pat kiwi/canadian

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