The Australian Association of Microbreweries have launched the new website, www.fairgocraftbeer.com.au .

Read email below from Paul Holgate.

Recently Cam, myself and Neal Cameron from William Bull/De Bortoli (NSW) visited Canberra and had some fantastic meetings, including the Finance Minister (Mr Lindsay Tanner) and the office of the Assistant Treasurer (Mr Chris Bowen). We also met with Neal's local MP, Kaye Hull who is going to be our champion and helping us to continue to raise the profile. From this last visit we have initiated a number of actions, and a national campaign designed to make as much NOISE as possible in the next two months prior to the next pre-Budget submission in February and prior to Kaye Hull setting up a bipartisan back-bench committee to tackle this issue. Part of the campaign is a national petition that we have started and want to table in the House of Reps in Feb.

We need your input and action NOW (today Fri 5th Dec), even though it is the festive season, as we need to make as much NOISE as possible leading up to the February pre-budget submissions and the Feb sitting of parliament for our Petition submission

How can you help? Please do the following yourself, but also we need you to coordinate this request out to ALL WA breweries and get them to ALL action it now, today (5th Dec).

1. Each brewery to send me an e-mail confirming their support for the campaign and that they are OK to be listed on the website

2. Each brewery to print down a Petition from the website, follow the instructions, and get as many signatures as possible between NOW and end-Jan. Holiday season is great time to get all those consumers to sign.

3. VAMI is sending you FREE some support posters and T-Shirts for staff to wear promote the Petition signing. But no need to wait, you can print a poster down and at least have the Petition on your bar ready to go, now, today.

4. Contact/Visit your local MP - now or in Jan. At least an e-mail. Explain our plight, and use the Petition as a guide for our argument. If they acknowledge their support, get them to demonstrate/action this support by:

a) allowing us to put their name on our website as a supporter....we need their office to send us an e-mail confirming this (we have some MPs already listed up there)

b) get each local MP to send the attached pro-form letter, from themselves on their letter head, to Chris Bowen asap.

c) Ask them to join up with the Kaye Hull sponsored bipartisan back-bench committee. If they are keen, let us know and Kaye will contact them

5. Encourage any other local venues and good beer joints to put out the petition for signing. We will need the venue details to load them up as a location, and let them know we will give them T-shirts and posters.

We have NSW and Vic already started on this campaign and we need you asap

Please confirm you can send this out and coordinate response from all the WA breweries ??

And give me a yell if you have any queries

cheers

Paul Holgate

Holgate Brewhouse

03 54 273 522

03 54 272 510

www.holgatebrewhouse.com