With the Federal Government`s "Alcopops" Tax Bill currently facing rejection and defeat by the Parliament, the following questions should be asked:

1) Why was the 70% Liquor Tax allowed to be added to the price of all pre-mixed drinks before the Bill was passed into LAW?

2)Why then if the Tax is not passed into law, is the reputed $300 million already stolen from the consumers back-pocket going to be allegedly returned to the Liquor Industry, when they have done nothing except apply the 70% tax to those sales of liquor affected?

3) Why should the Liquor Industry, who have never failed to secure every single opportunity to increase their take at point of sale, now be the beneficiaries of this massive windfall of $300 million for simply doing nothing?

4) Because of the compexity involved in trying to return this "stolen" money to the consumers, why cannot this subject $300 million be injected into the deserving Public Hospital System, instead of simply making a gift of it to an undeserving cause?

This very expensive exercise in arrogance by the Federal Government, should be taken as a lesson learned in grabbing cash illegally and I would suggest that they are lucky to NOT to be facing a class action by the victims of this bureacracy which is out of control!

Cuphandle,
You raise a good point and in theory I agree the alternative uses of the funds. However pity about your purple prose political comentary because it is both debatable and irrelevant.
The answer is simple the big liquor will sue. The public are unlikely to the individuals won't be able to supply sufficient proof. It wouldn't be worth the individual consumer cost and there is a bottom limit to a legal challenge as set by the court.Nor would a class action be able to pin point the plaintives.
I more interested in understanding why or what is the Senators problem. with a sunset clause as at next week and drawing a line under the commonwealth's (our) expense.

IMO, the tax was illegally collected, hence can't be kept or passed on to the health system, no matter how sensible that idea is.
The "problem" with the Senate is that it's doing exactly what it was set up to do, over-see and review of the Gov'. That the peculiarities of the last election have left just one man able to scotch legislation is unfortunate, but you can't even blame him, he's just "carpe' diem", as it were. That the man concerned has little idea of the complexities of the modern economy or taxation system, let alone society, is not his fault, he put his position to the electors, and he won, on a principled stand.
As I see it, pushing for a limitation on Alcohol advertising is a reasonable position, for him, and if the Gov' was so obstinate as to refuse him, they must wear any approbation attached to this debacle, they've had long enough to sort it out, but now their bluff is called.
As for the Industry copping $300mill' windfall, the obvious solution would be for the Gov' to put it into a Trust-fund, and use it for alcohol-related problems, that would appear to be legal, and moral, not a concept that Gov's are comfortable with, I know, lol.

I would be somewhat surprised if the liquor companies sued for their money back, however watertight their case.

If I were on their PR team, I'd tell them to issue a press statement along the lines that "Big Liquor supports responsible drinking, and while it doesn't believe the government's proposed tax was either fair or realistic, would prefer that the tax already extracted be used to heighten public awareness of the dangers of binge drinking."

It was a tax. They can't give it back to the people who paid it. So keeping it would be unnecessarily opportunistic, when they can get political mileage from a "responsible" stance.

(My rates are quite reasonable, Big Liquor, if you're listening)

Pericles,
I think you're on the money.
Mines even cheaper.
I tend to brew my own low alc :-)