Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that for nearly two decades a 10 per cent GST has been applied to women’s sanitary products;

(2) notes that:

(a) this is an unfair and discriminatory tax on women;

(b) tampons and pads are not luxury items but rather essential items;

(c) Australian women are fed up with paying extra for items that they need to live and work;

(d) Labor has announced a concrete plan to scrap the GST on sanitary products; and

(e) Labor’s plan:

  (i) would restore equity but also save a woman up to $1,000 over her lifetime; and

  (ii) has already attracted the support of a number of state and territories, putting progress within reach; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) immediately adopt Labor’s plan to abolish the tax on women’s sanitary products; and

(b) work with the states and territories to end this tax once and for all.

A tax on tampons and sanitary products is a tax on women, plain and simple. The tampon tax costs Australian women around $30 million a year, with individual women forced to pay $1,000 over their lifetime. As time has passed, this tax has become more and more conspicuous for its hypocrisy and blatant discrimination. It's a relic from another era that simply doesn't belong in today's world.

I'm very pleased to be bringing this motion before the House this evening on the very same day that our colleagues in the Senate agreed to axe this unfair and discriminatory impost on women. But it's appalling and embarrassing that the Turnbull government is doubling down on its commitment to this preposterous throwback policy. At the very same time that Mr Turnbull is running a relentless crusade to hand back billions of dollars to big business, multinationals and the banks, he's pushing back on removing this ridiculous tax on Australian women. Let's be clear, tampons are not a luxury. They are a necessity, just like other GST-exempt health and hygiene products such as sunscreen or incontinence pads. Anyone who tells you otherwise has clearly never menstruated.

This issue is one that shows how deeply removed this government is from the modern world—how absolutely and utterly out of touch so many of its members are with basic community standards of fairness and equality. They're going in to bat against the GST on superyachts, but won't lift a finger to remove the tax on women. They think it's fine for a tax to be levied on tampons, but not Viagra. Devoid of any sort of sensible argument, to protect the tax the government has reverted to childish name calling, with the Treasurer declaring that calls to remove the tampon tax are 'silly'.

On this side of the House, we see things very differently. I think it's very fitting to note tonight that there is not a single government member who is prepared to rise and speak on this motion. I do want to pay special tribute to the member for Ballarat, who will be speaking later, for her lifelong commitment to ensuring that this tax on tampons and sanitary products is removed. We on this side of the House have a concrete plan to axe this unfair tax. We'll work with the states and territories to scrap it urgently upon coming to office. Any financial impact will be offset by adding GST to 12 therapies which the Chief Medical Officer has said have no scientific basis or any evidence based proof of efficacy. People will of course still be able to access these services, but they will have to pay GST on them. It's a fully funded plan that we have: it won't hurt the states, and it has already secured the support of the premiers of Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia and the chief ministers of the ACT and the Northern Territory. The Turnbull government has no excuse not to act.

Of course, from the outside, it's all blindingly obvious that the tax needs to go, but it illustrates a much deeper and more impactful problem: what happens when you develop policy that affects women without having women at the table? One thing is for certain: if women had had a deciding say when the final details of the GST inclusions and exclusions were being nutted out by the Howard government, this tampon tax would not have made it out of the starting gate. But back in 1999 these laws were drafted by a largely male cohort of public servants, reporting to a largely male cabinet in an overwhelming male parliament. Is it any wonder that this is what they came up with? The reality is that until we have equal representation of women in this place and the other place, until women have equal access to the policy development table, until Australian women have equal representation in cabinet, this parliament will continue to develop policy that disadvantages women.

Labor has a plan to fix the tampon tax. It's fully costed and it's a no-brainer. More importantly, Labor has a plan to make sure this sort of discriminatory policy never sees the light of day again—at least, not under a Labor government. We'll restore the women's budget statement so we know what the gender impacts of budget decisions are. We'll subject every single piece of legislation to a gender analysis to identify any potentially adverse gender impacts. With 48 per cent of our federal representatives now being women, we'll have the right people at the table to make the right decisions for Australian women. It's time for the government to follow suit on axing the tampon tax and bringing these important initiatives forward.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I'm very pleased to support this motion. There are significant financial and social obstacles that still face women in Australia. In our society too often women are treated with disdain and complete disregard. The statistics of rape, domestic violence and sexual abuse point to just that. The death of 22-year-old Eurydice Dixon in Melbourne is a tragic reminder of just how quickly women's lives can be taken. It was because she chose to walk home, which should be a right, not a death sentence. Thirty-eight per cent of women between the ages of 18 and 24 report that they have been sexually harassed in the past year, according to the Bureau of Statistics. Our economy and tax system too often treat women with total disdain and disregard. Women retire with 53 per cent of the superannuation that men do. Women earn about 17 per cent less than men do. That data is one of the reasons why women are more likely than men to experience poverty and homelessness.

This government has done little to improve the lot of women. Since being in government, the Liberals have tried to cut paid parental leave, calling working mums rorters and double dippers. Their childcare policy creates losers at either end of the financial spectrum. They've cut penalty rates and cut community legal centres, all of which disproportionately impacts women. They've cut almost $2 billion worth of pay rises and support for workers in feminised industries such as early childhood education and disability care. They failed to reinstate the women's budget impact statement, which was canned by self-proclaimed feminist and former Minister for Women Tony Abbott. And now we have them unwilling to budge on the simplest of measures to bring a modicum of equity to every menstruating woman.

Women are now in the unenviable position of having to rely on the benevolence of a Liberal government still, unsurprisingly, predominantly filled with men to change the rules. Really, I should say 'increasingly' filled by men, as they allow men to push women out of held positions. We rely on these men to decide whether our pads and our tampons are necessary items or not. A classification of 'necessary' is already bestowed upon condoms and things like Viagra. Only a bunch of blokes would let it get to this point. You really have to wonder what their definition of 'necessary' is if it doesn't apply to tampons or pads.

I'd like to remind everyone in the room that we have to buy these items every month for as long as we have our periods. Menstruation is not a choice. It's part of a woman's reproductive health. While there is a policy in place that deems Viagra more necessary than pads and tampons, the message being sent to women and men is that man's ability to have sex is more important than a women's access to basic hygiene.

To those who believe that removing the tax is tokenistic and won't make a real economic difference to the lives of women, I want to share with you what I was told recently by a young woman who had to count every penny while she was at university. She told me that she and a group of friends worked out that it was slightly cheaper to go on the pill and skip periods as often as they could than buying sanitary items on a monthly basis. This is the sort of calculation that young women trying to make ends meet have done. So, on economic grounds, for women who are students, who are among the working poor, who are unemployed, who are homeless, who are carers—for any woman who is doing it tough financially—the cost can be a factor in the decisions they make about their reproductive health.

I say to all the gentlemen in the room, and I note that there are but a few on the other side: these things aren't cheap; they definitely aren't a choice; and the women of Australia would be better served by you as their representatives if you were to stand aside for once, stop the garbage arguments, axe the tax and let us get on with it—and support this motion.

Those opposite should not continue to treat this matter with disdain and disregard. These are important issues not just to women but to people who care about women. This government, despite the lack of women in its cabinet and even in the house at large, has an opportunity to take one simple step in the right direction for women. We say, 'Take the glory—we don't care. Just do it: axe the tax.'

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to 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.