Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports removing the GST from sanitary products. But, given the need for state and territory support, we want to work with them to ensure they're not worse off through a loss in GST revenue. The fact is that the Liberals have little interest in making this reality. There's been a lot of talk but no leadership or action. The Howard government imposed the GST on sanitary products when the tax was first introduced. In 2015, then Treasurer Joe Hockey sought to blame the Australian Democrats for the impost, saying they had not excluded the products from the GST during negotiations on the tax. In 2015, Hockey said that GST should be removed from sanitary products and undertook to raise the issue with state treasurers. However, then Prime Minister Tony Abbott ruled out a change within days. In 2015, four Labor states and the then Liberal-National Northern Territory government supported removing the tampon tax. Federal Labor will continue to work with the states and territories and will have more to say in the future.