TV interview with Minister Butler, Sunrise – 6 November 2026

MONIQUE WRIGHT, HOST: There are grave fears that Australia's rising spirit tax could unleash a violent black market, similar to the illicit tobacco trade. Australia's peak alcohol body is calling on the Federal Government to review the tax, with new ATO figures estimating illegal sales account for nearly 14% of the entire alcohol market. So let's bring in Health Minister Mark Butler and Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume. Good to see you both.

Okay, Mark, we're going to start with you, but we're going to just give a bit of information to our viewers now. Take a standard 700ml bottle of Absolute Vodka, for example. Now, if it costs $48, $30 of that is eaten up in the alcohol excise alone another $5 goes to GST. The rest, which isn't much, divided between the retailer-distributor and supplier, many health risks, of course, with alcohol, you being the Health Minister. But surely you don't want it to get as bad as illicit tobacco and have that whole underground trade happening.
 
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING, MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NDIS: And the violence that we've seen in the illicit tobacco market started in Melbourne, spread right through the country. We're really keen to get a handle on this very quickly. We have seen a very recent rise in the amount of illegal alcohol being traded in Australia. Illegal alcohol is everywhere around the world. It's always been a big part of the market. But we've been able to keep a lid on it in Australia pretty well, as they have in Europe and North America. The excise arrangements for alcohol haven't really changed in more than 40 years. It's very different to tobacco, where there have been some health interventions, particularly last decade, to lift the excise rate. It's important to say that excise hasn't changed for four decades for alcohol, particularly for spirits. And the illicit market is very much a spirits trade. It's not beer, it's not wine. At the moment, our approach is very much enforcement, enforcement, enforcement. There are better regimes around liquor licencing, so the venues should know they're not allowed to sell illicit alcohol. And, frankly, local enforcement authorities should be coming down on them hard.
 
WRIGHT: Look, the Spirits Council of Australia, which is considered the peak alcohol body in Australia, is saying that that's not working. The black market makes up about 10% of the market now, but they see that growing. Don't you need to do something now?
 
BUTLER: We are doing something. The Tax Office particularly is working with enforcement authorities. We're determined to put a lid on this -
 
WRIGHT: Enforcement, so just enforcement?
 
BUTLER: It’s got to be enforcement. The excise arrangements are pretty standard. They've been in place since the 1980s. They're indexed, obviously, every year, as all excise is. But it's not the same as tobacco, where there was a significant change to excise last decade for public health reasons. This is really business as usual from a taxation point of view, going back to the Bob Hawke era. Really, I think what we're seeing is criminal gangs trying to make a profit to bankroll their other criminal activity.
 
WRIGHT: Well, that peak body is saying that that's not enough at the moment. Jane, let's bring you in now. The Coalition promising to cut the tobacco excise by 80 per cent to combat the illicit trade there in cigarettes. Would you consider the same for a spirits tax so the black market doesn't get worse?
 
SENATOR JANE HUME: Well, the most important thing here is disrupting the organised crime business model, and that's exactly why we've announced a cut to the tobacco excise, which unbelievably, almost counterintuitively, actually brings more revenue in to government coffers as well because so much money has gone to illicit tobacco. When people have the opportunity to buy legal tobacco, they choose to do so, so long as the price differential isn't there. It's very disappointing though to hear that organised crime that's been allowed to flourish because of the high tobacco excise is now beginning to pivot to liquor. Now, this is old-fashioned extortion. Bootlegging has been around for centuries. But the problem is now, if you allow organised crime to take hold, well, that's when the dangers happen. We're now seeing 13-year-olds being co-opted by these organised crime gangs to inflict the damage, firebombing, thefts and robberies. That's what's happening because organised crime is being allowed to flourish. You have to disrupt the business model.
 
WRIGHT: So Jane, what would the coalition do about this?
 
HUME: Well, actually, we're doing the work some members of Parliament, Mary Aldred and Richard Colbeck, who did some really good taskforce work on illicit tobacco, are now having a look at bootlegged liquor, at illicit liquor. And it's really important to get that work done. I'm not going to announce policy here today, but to be honest, we cannot allow organised crimes to flourish, and that's what's happening under Labor.
 
WRIGHT: Okay, it sounds like both sides of government are still working on this. Watch this space. Now, David Jones has been placed into administration, as we've been reporting this morning, after 188 years in operation. Opposition leader Angus Taylor was quick to blame the government, saying that the chain survived world wars and the Great Depression, but couldn't find a way forward in Labor's economy. Jane, one minister accused Mr Taylor of political point scoring over the David Jones collapse, while almost 6,000 employees are desperately waiting to find out what's going to happen, and the suppliers also. What should have been done differently? What would a coalition have done?
 
HUME: Well, first of all, let me say my heart goes out to the thousands of families now who are going to be devastated by this news, who are uncertain as to whether they're going to have a job before Christmas. Let's hope that there is a rescue package for David Jones, a white knight that comes good. Because, to be honest, David Jones is just one of many businesses that are struggling under Labor's economy, with higher taxes, higher rents, higher electricity prices, higher insurance costs, more red tape. David Jones won't be the first business that's going to suffer under economy.
 
WRIGHT: No, and in fact, we're hearing it constantly. Thousands of businesses really at crisis point. Mark, you know that. Costs are rising, interest rates are hiking. A lot of business just don’t see a way forward. A lot of them are our viewers, is there any hope?
 
BUTLER: Well, like Jane, I think we’re all thinking about the thousands of staff and suppliers who are really uncertain about some of their stock and the debts that are owed to them by David Jones. But we do hope there is a future. But sort of trying to look through all the political point scoring that we just heard, I think all your viewers understand there’s real pressure on these retailers. More and more people are doing online shopping. I know even I do. I use the David Jones website, but I frankly do more online shopping than going to the stores that I used to do. So, yes, there's some pressure on consumer spending right now because of the rise in fuel prices, the rise in interest rates. But as we all know, David Jones has come through that before.
 
WRIGHT: Yeah. The structural pressure on these big retail stores through online shopping is something that obviously has sort of broken David Jones right now. We just want to see the network survive in some form with a white knight buyer. Obviously, they then have to do some pretty hard-nosed rent negotiations with Westfield, which is what led to this thing this week. Okay, but they're not the only criticisms of the government from businesses. The red tape, which the Chamber of Commerce is saying is a handbrake on Australia's productivity. You mentioned the transport costs there, yes, but there are so many issues that businesses bring up and you're saying we have hope? That's not a strategy, is it?
 
BUTLER: No, I was talking particularly about David Jones there and the structural pressures that are there on big retail stores right across the globe you're seeing very significant closures of these big retail stores as people shift to online shopping. That's something David Jones hopefully a new buyer are going to have to work through to preserve some part of that network. But in terms of general approaches to productivity and red tape we're doing a lot of work on that there was a lot of changes in the budget that Jim Chalmers announced earlier this year to cut red tape, to streamline the way in which businesses are and get approvals for their operations.
 
WRIGHT: Alright, Mark, Jane, appreciate both of your time this morning. Thank you.