Labor leaders in every state and territory have signed up to Federal Labor’s plan to remove the GST on women’s sanitary products.

Less than a week after it was announced, the plan has received support from the Premiers of Victoria, Queensland and WA, the Chief Ministers of the ACT and the NT, and Labor leaders in NSW, SA and Tasmania.  The leaders wrote to Bill Shorten in recent days.

For the first time there is agreement from leaders in every state and territory that this unfair tax on women has to go.

We are proud to be leading the way to abolish the GST on tampons and pads.

It is ridiculous that tampons and pads attract GST while incontinence pads, sunscreen and nicotine patches – even Viagra – are exempt from the tax. 

Women’s sanitary products are necessities, and they shouldn’t be taxed. 

Labor has found a sensible way to replace the GST revenue states and territories would lose when the “tampon tax” is scrapped.  

So there is no excuse left for Malcom Turnbull - he should adopt Labor’s proposal in this week’s Budget. 

The Turnbull Government and Scott Morrison demonstrated once again last week that they’re not serious in making the case to states and territories that additional GST revenue will be made available to offset removing the unfair tax on women’s sanitary products.

If Mr Turnbull fails to adopt Labor’s policy, a Shorten Labor Government will work with state and territory governments to scrap the tax urgently upon coming to office. 

To offset the loss of revenue to the states from GST on sanitary items, GST will be applied consistently to 12 natural therapies that are sometimes GST free, such as herbalism and naturopathy.

These natural therapies are not supported by clinical evidence, as the Commonwealth’s Chief Medical Officer and the National Health and Medical Research Council found in a review in 2015.  

SUNDAY, 6 MAY 2018