Queensland’s independent brewers have told a state parliamentary committee that proposed reforms to the Containers for Change scheme will push up the cost of beer, drive regional breweries to closure and amount to double taxation – while the industry received no meaningful consultation before the Bill was drafted.
Representatives from the Independent Brewers Association (IBA) appeared before the state’s Health, Environment and Innovation Committee on 28 April 2026 alongside the Queensland Distillers Association and multinational brewer Lion, as the committee examined the Waste Reduction and Recycling (Strengthening the Container Refund Scheme) Amendment Bill 2026.
The cost burden on craft beer
Gavin Croft, head brewer at Slipstream Brewing Company, told the committee the container deposit scheme already represents around eight per cent of the cost of goods for a typical pale ale. Once wholesale and retail margins and GST are applied, he said the scheme adds roughly $5 to $6 to the price of a 24-pack carton – against a maximum refund of $2.40 if every can is returned.
Your Mates Brewing Company’s Christen McGarry was more pointed about the cumulative cost burden his business faces.
“When you add in excise, our compliance cost burden has increased by around 70 per cent. That is roughly an extra $7 per carton, or an extra 25 per cent, on the cost to make beer that is not going into quality, innovation or jobs – it is just going into compliance.”
McGarry acknowledged his brewery is among the most successful independents in the country – stocked across 1,500 bottle shops and venues and voted third most popular beer in Australia – but said margins remain precarious even at that scale.
“Even at that level it is a daily struggle to operate in this industry with margins as slight as they are.”
He argued the industry sits in a squeeze between large foreign-owned corporations that can absorb costs and dictate pricing on one end, and very small operators who remain below the compliance threshold on the other.
“We would honestly be better off giving up and being 1,000 times smaller. That is not a healthy outcome for Queensland. It reduces our ability to compete and to innovate and ultimately takes choice away from Queensland consumers.”
Double taxation claim
A central argument from the IBA was that the Bill’s proposal to allow the Queensland government to recover its oversight costs from the scheme amounts to double taxation. Croft put it bluntly to the committee.
“We consider the CDS to be a tax of sorts. It looks like a tax and it smells like a tax… Queenslanders are paying $2 for every $1 that the scheme receives, based on the margins and GST being applied to it as well,” he said.
“If the Queensland government were to take money from Coex to run oversight, regulation and whatever, Queenslanders would be paying $2 for every $1 you are taking out.”
The appearance before the committee followed the IBA’s written submission which was was equally direct, arguing that government is already funded by taxpayers to perform its regulatory function and that any cost recovery from the scheme for that purpose is “an entirely inappropriate appropriation of funds.”
The small producer threshold problem
Both IBA representatives argued the Bill’s proposed 20,000-container exemption threshold would provide almost no practical relief for brewers. McGarry told the committee that figure represents roughly 1,500 cartons – a single batch run for his brewery. He suggested the threshold should be closer to one million containers to create meaningful relief for businesses of the size the ATO would classify as small.
Croft added that a flat threshold creates a damaging cliff effect.
“We are not really interested in a completely free component anyway because that creates a cliff where if you exist under it you are profitable and if you exist over it you are not profitable until you get to a really large scale,” he said.
“We would much rather see a tiered pricing structure for small producers up to a certain level.”
McGarry estimated more than 70 per cent of Queensland’s approximately 94 independent breweries would already be above the 20,000-container threshold – meaning the relief measure would exclude the vast majority of the sector it is supposedly designed to help.
The IBA submission also highlighted a structural anomaly: the Bill defines any manufacturer producing more than 300,000 containers per year as a “large” producer, restricting them from board representation. Under the ATO’s definition, a small business has an aggregated turnover of less than $10 million – a threshold that almost all independent Queensland brewers would fall under. Yet many sell well over 300,000 containers annually, meaning they are simultaneously classified as small businesses for tax purposes and large producers for scheme governance purposes.
No consultation
Both IBA representatives and the Queensland Distillers Association told the committee they received no consultation before the Bill was introduced on 26 March 2026. Croft said the only contact from the Queensland government came in 2017, when an official came to inform the industry that Coex was happening – not to seek feedback.
“That was the only time we were ever spoken to,” he said.
“It was not for questions or for feedback; it was just to tell us that this was happening. We have received nothing from the Queensland government since.”
McGarry noted the industry was given an extremely compressed timeframe to respond to complex legislation – a point echoed in the IBA’s written submission, which noted the association had three weeks over the Easter long weekend to digest and respond to the Bill.
True cost to Queenslanders
In closing remarks, Croft offered an estimate of the scheme’s total cost to Queenslanders.
“We estimate that the cost of this existing scheme to Queenslanders is around $1 billion a year. That is what Queenslanders are paying for this scheme,” he said.
“Roughly half of that goes to Coex, 10 per cent goes to GST and the rest is margin.”
He said most consumers are unaware of that cost, which is why public satisfaction with the scheme remains high – but argued the only tangible outcome the scheme delivers is litter reduction.
