Grandad Jack boss Dave Ridden lobbies against gin, vodka, whisky tax

A booming Gold Coast gin, vodka and whiskey maker says huge taxes on the trendy spirits are hampering it from doubling its staff.

SPIRITED RELIEF

A Gold Coast craft distillery has joined a national campaign to cut Australia’s onerous spirits tax in a bid to spur new growth and help the industry recover from COVID-driven disruption.

Grandad Jack’s boss Dave Ridden told City Beat that his family-owned company backed a lobbying effort in Canberra this week to slash the levy and freeze automatic CPI increases which kick in every six months.

His Miami-based business, which launched nearly three years ago and churns out gin, vodka and whiskey, pays almost $88 a litre in tax, now the third highest rate in the world and nearly 10 times the impost in the US.

“With a fairer spirits tax regime, we think we could more than double our staff numbers within 12 months.

We’re already working on the build for our second distillery in Brisbane and if this tax gets fixed, it’s more than likely we’d open a third distillery somewhere in regional Queensland,’’ Ridden said.

Dave Ridden, owner of Granddad Jack's distillery on the Gold Coast with son Luke Ridden.

He’s aiming to open that new Brisbane outpost in Albion by mid-May.

The $1.2m facility will allow the company to double in current production of about 250,000 litres a year.

Ridden predicted that the spirits tax relief could create several hundred jobs in distilleries across Queensland over the next 12 months.

It would also grow employment in related industries.

Lobbyists from the Australian Distillers Association and Spirits & Cocktails Australia made their pitch to the pollies via a pre-budget submission.

As part of the tax relief, they’re calling for a lift in the excise refund limit from $100,000 to $350,000, a move which would even the playing field with small wine producers.

Notably, independent modelling from PwC suggests the changes would actually boost tax revenues by $1.4bn over forward estimates.

We’ll drink to that!