EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 1982 No. 376
Spirits Regulations (Amendment)
Issued by the Authority of the Minister of State for the Capital Territory acting for and on behalf of the Minister of State for Industry and Commerce
Section 12 of the Spirits Act 1906 provides that spirits or distilled spirituous liquors, made in Australia and ordinarily used for home consumption (other than gin, Geneva, Hollands, Schnapps, vodka, aquavit, arak, liqueurs, spirit for fortifying Australian wine and such other spirits and distilled spirituous liquors as are prescribed) shall not be delivered from the control of the Customs unless they have been matured by storage in wood for a period of not less than two years.
Regulation 9B of the Spirits Regulations prescribes the distilled spirituous liquors for the purposes of section 12 of the Act.
The purpose of this regulation is to amend regulation 9B of the Spirits Regulations to prescribe in that regulation, fruit brandy (other than brandy distilled from grapes) thereby exempting that product from the two year maturation requirement of section 12 of the Act.
This action is proposed because imported fruit brandies are exempt from the two-year maturation requirement pursuant to Regulation 9A of the Spirits Regulations.
The requirement that imported fruit brandy be matured in the wood for at least two years was removed in 1953 and at that time there was no manufacture of fruit brandy in Australia.
A regulation (Statutory Rules 1980 No. 384) the same in substance as this proposed regulation was disallowed in the House of Representatives on 5 May 1981. At that time it was argued that the removal of the two-year maturation requirement for Australian fruit brandy was premature because there was no production in Australia and the maturation requirements for the Australian Spirit Industry were currently under examination by a working party of the National Health and Medical Research Council.
The working party of the Council has since recommended that the maturation requirement for Australian produced fruit brandies be removed. This recommendation has the support of the Australian Spirit Industry.
Two Australian distilleries have now reached the stage of bottling fruit brandies and both companies have invested considerable funds in the production of the product.
The maintenance of the two year maturation period for the Australian produced product would have placed that product at a competitive disadvantage to imported fruit brandies which are exempt from any maturation requirement.