Alcohol available for consumption in Australia

Data sources

Cider is usually excised according to the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET), which is not related to the amount of alcohol in the beverage. Additionally, cider makes up a small fraction of the total WET amount, so it is not possible to use taxation data to estimate the amount of cider made available in Australia each year. This meant that cider was historically not included in the collection. However, as cider became a more popular beverage in Australia, it became important to estimate how much cider was being made available in Australia.

The Apparent Consumption of Alcohol collection uses self-reported responses from the National Health Survey to estimate how much cider was consumed by the respondents. As this is based on a sample, it does not provide an absolute value for cider consumed throughout Australia. Instead, it provides an amount of cider that was consumed compared to other alcoholic beverages in the surveyed population. This relative amount can be used in conjunction with the Apparent Consumption of Alcohol collection estimates for beer, wine and spirits to estimate the total amount of cider made available for consumption.

Using survey data means that cider estimates do not distinguish between the source of the cider. Cider estimates have been removed from other data sources such as import clearance estimates to avoid double-counting. Cider estimates are also prone to change, as cider proportions are only calculated in years where the National Health Survey are run. As cider is calculated relative to other beverage categories, changes to those estimates will also affect cider estimates.

The availability of the 2022 National Health Survey meant that revised cider availability estimates could be generated from 2018–19 to 2022–23. National Health Survey data were obtained via TableBuilder (ABS 2023). Typically, years where the National Health Survey is not run use estimates interpolated between prior and future survey waves.

Methodological considerations

No changes to the calculation methods for cider availability were made for this release of the Apparent Consumption of Alcohol collection. Cider estimates may be different to the estimates previously published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, due to changes in beer and wine estimates.