Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the member for Newcastle's motion to axe the tampon tax, and I join the member for Macquarie in doing so. I do think it's absolutely extraordinary that not a single government member has been prepared to speak on this motion at all. Either they're for it or they're not. Clearly, they're not, or they're too embarrassed by their complete lack of action to have the courage of their convictions and get up and talk on this motion. It is extraordinary, frankly.

This tax, this tampon tax, is the perfect example of what happens when you have a political process that is overwhelmingly dominated by men. The GST was designed by men in the senior ranks of the Public Service, approved by the Howard government cabinet that boasted just one woman and, in 1999, ultimately passed by a parliament that was made up of 169 men and 55 women.

Nearly 20 years later, we are doing little better. We've still never had a female head of Treasury, but there are five women in cabinet now—a long way short of equal, but an improvement nonetheless. In Labor's shadow cabinet, we have seven women. We have a parliament that is now one-third women, thanks in no small part to the work done by the Australian Labor Party. We have quotas to ensure we preselect women in winnable seats, and those quotas are working. Labor is inching even closer to a true fifty-fifty equal representation of men and women. Right now, it's at 46.7 per cent.

If the other side of politics took gender equity as seriously as we do, we'd be much closer to equal representation in this place. Sadly, there is no sign that the conservatives really care about gender equity at all, with only 23 per cent of Liberal MPs being women. That's actually down from 25 per cent when the GST passed. If you add in the National Party, the coalition's overall number drops to 21 per cent women. Not only do the Liberals stubbornly refuse to introduce even modest gender quotas so that talented women can overcome the structural barriers that keep them out, they're now busy tearing down the women who are already here. Is it any wonder that they don't have any plan to get rid of the tampon tax?

Labor's come a long way since the 1990s on gender equity. The coalition, by any measure, has gone absolutely backwards. Be in no doubt that this tax is discriminatory. It is unfair, and it is a tax on women. Women's sanitary items are essential health products. They are not a luxury item. It is quite simply unfair that women should have to pay extra for such items, while reproductive products for men, from condoms to Viagra, don't attract the GST. It's time to axe this tax once and for all, and that's exactly what a Labor government will do. Getting rid of the tampon tax would save the average Australian woman $1,000 over her lifetime.

In an age where the gender pay gap remains stubbornly wide, it's only fair that we find ways to give women some cost-of-living relief. That's not just about the hip pocket. It's about sending a message to Australian women that the tampon tax is wrong as a matter of principle. It is not that this is just a pie in the sky opposition promise—we have come up with an alternative means of funding for the states and territories to replace the revenue lost by GST, and it is a fully costed proposal. Whilst there's been talk, in fact, even on the government side, with former Treasurer Hockey saying they were going to axe this tax, and there have been proposals before, part of the difficulty is finding a GST offset that all of the states and territories can agree on.

We've done that by consistently applying the GST to a range of natural therapies that are not supported by clinical evidence. We will collect enough revenue to cover the cost of scrapping the tampon tax. It's a sensible solution, consistent with the government's own policies when it comes to the rebate on private health insurance. Most of the states are already onboard, and I note the three that are not are all Liberal states and I encourage the Prime Minister to act on that. If we're lucky enough to form government at the next election, I am confident that we will be able to get unanimous support for this proposal.

This morning, we saw the Senate vote in favour of scrapping this tax. There is no excuse. This tax absolutely has to go, and yet the Turnbull government is doing nothing constructive about this. Their only response is to try and pass the buck to the states or say that the proposals we put forward are silly. The Liberals could have adopted our policy in the May budget. They didn't. They could adopt it today. They have shown absolutely no interest in axing this tax at all. That's what you get from a government that does not take gender equality, or, indeed, basic fairness seriously at all.

Debate adjourned.

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