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Post by emilykate on May 10, 2010 22:31:14 GMT -5
Here's where we can post about various groups who were/are opposed to the GST on women's sanitary products - we are not alone!!The National Union of Students were against the GST on pads and tampons.
Source: www.greenleft.org.au/node/22888
Rally against GST on tampons
Wednesday, March 8, 2000 - 11:00
By Nikki Ulasowski
HOBART — The Tasmanian branch of the National Union of Students (NUS) organised a rally at the University of Tasmania here on March 3 to protest against the imposition of the GST on tampons and other sanitary products. Thirty people attended.
Speakers included NUS acting state president Rachel Thompson, NUS women's officer Felicity Winch, academic Margaret Lindley and International Women's Day collective member Kamala Emanuel.
Lindley explained how the GST will affect all working people throughout Australia and that women will be hit the hardest. She said the federal government did not have a mandate to implement the GST because parties opposed to the tax gained the most votes at the last federal election.
Emanuel listed women's health items that will be taxed under the GST. These include dams, breast pumps, diaphragms and IUDs. She said the GST was absurd and sexist. Emanuel urged those present to campaign against all aspects of the GST. She cited an example of the anti-poll tax campaign organised in Britain in the late 1980s which defeated the Thatcher government's tax legislation after it had been enacted.
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Post by emilykate on May 10, 2010 22:32:43 GMT -5
But wait... there's more!! Source: www.katelundy.com.au/2000/06/29/second-gst-on-tampons-and-sanitary-pads-petition-tabled-joint-statement-jenny-macklin-mp-and-senator-kate-lundy/Second GST on tampons and sanitary pads petition tabled JOINT STATEMENT: Jenny Macklin MP and Senator Kate Lundy
June 29, 2000 | By Annika Hutchins | Posted in Media Releases
Australian women will be slugged for the first time in 50 years when the Howard Government’s GST is applied to tampons and sanitary pads from 1 July.
In Parliament today, Senator Lundy tabled a second petition with 12,858 signatures calling on the Government to make tampons and sanitary pads GST-free. On 15 February 2000, the Opposition tabled a similar petition with 10,355 signatures, bringing the total to 23,213.
The Shadow Minister for Health and the Status of Women, Jenny Macklin, said today’s petition represented continued community resentment over the GST.
“The Government has refused to listen, and from this Saturday five million Australian women will pay more for their already expensive tampons, Ms Macklin said
“These products are health products. The Health Minister, Dr Wooldridge, does have the power to determine these products GST-free under Section 38-47 of the GST legislation in the same way he exempted condoms, sunscreens, folate pills and personal lubricants.
“The ACCC has not included tampons and sanitary pads in their GST Expected Price Variations Guide, so the five million Australian women who purchase these products are unable to monitor prices to ensure they are not being ripped off, Ms Macklin said.
Senator Lundy, Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Sport and I.T, said the petition tabled today builds on the largest electronic petition ever tabled in the Federal Parliament.
“It highlights the strength of community outrage against the Howard Government’s plan to tax tampons and sanitary pads for the first time,” Senator Lundy said.
“Women are actively using the Internet to voice their opinion. Of the 12,858 signatories to this petition, over 7,500 accessed the petition on the World Wide Web (www.katelundy.com.au). The petition was the inspiration of Katrina Allen, of de jour, who was outraged at the unfairness of this tax on women’s health products, Senator Lundy said.
Contact: Simon Tatz (Kate Lundy’s Office) 02-6277 3334 |
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Post by emilykate on May 10, 2010 22:40:29 GMT -5
You can read what the Social Network of Opportunistic Businesswomen have to say at www.snobs.com.au/2009/07/02/coles-cuts-tax-on-tampons/ quoted below:
Coles Cuts Tax on Tampons
by SNOBS on July 2, 2009
When the Howard Government introduced the Goods and Services Tax to Australia on July 1st 2000, it wasn’t welcome for a host of reasons. As you do, we’ve learned to live with it… EXCEPT FOR THE UTTERLY LUDICROUS TAX ON WOMEN’S SANITARY PRODUCTS.
Health products are supposed to be exempt from GST, so it’s rather infuriating that tampons wear a tax when items like suncream, condoms (and apparently cock rings) are GST free.
The Women’s Electoral Lobby attempted to challenge the rule before GST was even introduced but on January 21 [2000], Health Minister Dr. Michael Wooldridge said tampons and sanitary napkins were not health products, dismissively comparing them to shaving cream.
Sadly, the Rudd Government still thinks it’s perfectly acceptable for women to be taxed for menstruating.
So we’d like to give a thumbs-up to Coles (supermarkets) for their: You shouldn’t be taxed for being a woman-sale on sanitary products.
Yes, it is just a sale (it’s only on for the next week) and it is just a clever marketing campaign, but still, good on them for helping to resurface this idiotic injustice against women.
If you want to make some noise about it, add your name to the online petition started in 2006 by Australian feminist Clem Bastow or join her Facebook Group: Remove the GST from Pads & Tampons (currently 1,423 members).
And, of course, feel free to vent your opinion on the comment box…
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Post by emilykate on May 10, 2010 22:53:59 GMT -5
From www.aeufederal.org.au/Women/Taxingaustwom.html - - "
Taxing Australia's Women
Michaela Kronemann
Acting Federal Women's Officer
The Federal Government's efforts to ride out the storm of protest about the imposition of the GST on sanitary products says a great deal about their attitudes to women and raises again the issues which led the AEU and many other organisations to oppose the introduction of the GST.
An extraordinary level of Internet discussion and protest has now moved into the daily media and the Government's responses are becoming increasingly shrill. The Federal Minister for Health and Shaving Cream has now apologised for his comments last week about tampons having no greater claim than shaving cream. Since then, National Party MP De-Anne Kelly has been wheeled out to say that the issue was 'a beat-up, a Barbie doll issue to intimidate a largely conservative male cabinet'. She argued that the (recently defunded) Women's Electoral Lobby were seeing tampons as an old 1970's feminist issue, while women had moved on, and that anyway the cost would only be $4 extra per year and needy women and welfare recipients would receive compensation for the cost of the GST. (AAP 25/1)
Meanwhile Prime Minister Howard has claimed that there is no case for taking the tax off tampons and that an exemption would create a precedent. He intends instead to spend the next six months responding to concerns and pointing out the 'enormous benefits'. (The Age 24/1)
Whatever attempts are made to trivialise the issue, it is very clear that it won't go away. It won't go away because the number of women who are actively angry is growing.
The reality is that only women menstruate, and a tax on sanitary products is thus seen, rightly in my view, as a tax on women. Sadly, taxation is not covered by the Sex Discrimination Act.
The comments of the Minister for Shaving Cream have incensed women further as it has become obvious that removal of the wholesales tax on items such as shaving cream will mean that they are expected to become cheaper when the GST is introduced, while women will face a 10% GST impost on sanitary products. Items like suncream and condoms, incidentally, are reported to be GST free.
As Anne Summers has noted, many women have erroneously believed that tampons have been subject to luxury tax because they are so expensive, a matter about which two prices surveillance inquiries in the 1980's agreed. To add tax to an already highly priced item which only women are forced to buy is seen as adding insult to injury. The total 'feminine hygiene' market is worth $202.1m, so Australian women are set to pay about $20 million in GST. (Sydney Morning Herald 20/1)
Women overall continue to earn less than men, so this imposition adds to existing inequities. Apart from the principle of taxing women only, the notion that it is only $4-$5 extra per year (and thus, implicitly, not a problem) is also an issue. For many women, the needs and thus the costs will be considerably higher. More specifically, women in low income families are already confronted with a growing list of unsurmountable costs with the imposition of user pays across a wide range of areas and services. The 1997 Brotherhood of St Laurence study of 628 low income people in Victoria, for example, found that over 38% were missing meals in order to pay their children's educational costs. To women in such circumstances, the imposition of the GST on sanitary products may well mean further missed meals.
A contributor to ausfem-polnet has argued that Treasurer Costello was asked at the 1998 national women's round table whether the new tax package had been subjected to a gender audit process. Had that occurred, the Government would presumably not have found itself in this increasingly silly position. Instead, much of the women's policy forums has been dismantled.
The reality is that the current debate about the GST on sanitary products highlights the fundamental flaws of a flat-earth tax. Taxing all people's expenditure, and all items, at the same rate, creates inequities. Moreover there is a huge and uncharted minefield of differential and often unforseen impacts underlying the surface simplicity of the GST. The fact that the Democrats leader has been reported as saying that she had wrongly believed that tampons were already taxed (The Age 24/1) indicates both the complexity of the taxation process and the extent to which the likely impacts were not properly analysed before decisions were made.
National Day of Action
A National Day of Action for Australian women to say NO to the GST on menstruation will occur on 25 February 2000. Women have been invited to organise their own activities. There is a petition to sign and letters to federal politicians and to the Prime Minister to write.
Further details of campaign activity and the petition can be found on the Women's Electoral Lobby's Internet site
If we don't stop it now, you could well be angry about this every month for anything up to the next forty years." |
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Post by emilykate on May 23, 2010 23:16:24 GMT -5
Remember the time when Jenny Macklin was really vocal when it came to the GST being on women's sanitary items? Well, I do!
Source: www.katelundy.com.au/2000/06/29/second-gst-on-tampons-and-sanitary-pads-petition-tabled-joint-statement-jenny-macklin-mp-and-senator-kate-lundy/
Second GST on tampons and sanitary pads petition tabled JOINT STATEMENT: Jenny Macklin MP and Senator Kate Lundy
June 29, 2000 | By Annika Hutchins | Posted in Media Releases
Australian women will be slugged for the first time in 50 years when the Howard Government’s GST is applied to tampons and sanitary pads from 1 July.
In Parliament today, Senator Lundy tabled a second petition with 12,858 signatures calling on the Government to make tampons and sanitary pads GST-free. On 15 February 2000, the Opposition tabled a similar petition with 10,355 signatures, bringing the total to 23,213.
The Shadow Minister for Health and the Status of Women, Jenny Macklin, said today’s petition represented continued community resentment over the GST.
“The Government has refused to listen, and from this Saturday five million Australian women will pay more for their already expensive tampons, Ms Macklin said
“These products are health products. The Health Minister, Dr Wooldridge, does have the power to determine these products GST-free under Section 38-47 of the GST legislation in the same way he exempted condoms, sunscreens, folate pills and personal lubricants.
“The ACCC has not included tampons and sanitary pads in their GST Expected Price Variations Guide, so the five million Australian women who purchase these products are unable to monitor prices to ensure they are not being ripped off, Ms Macklin said.
Senator Lundy, Shadow Minister for Youth Affairs, Sport and I.T, said the petition tabled today builds on the largest electronic petition ever tabled in the Federal Parliament.
“It highlights the strength of community outrage against the Howard Government’s plan to tax tampons and sanitary pads for the first time,” Senator Lundy said.
“Women are actively using the Internet to voice their opinion. Of the 12,858 signatories to this petition, over 7,500 accessed the petition on the World Wide Web (www.katelundy.com.au). The petition was the inspiration of Katrina Allen, of de jour, who was outraged at the unfairness of this tax on women’s health products, Senator Lundy said.
Contact: Simon Tatz (Kate Lundy’s Office) 02-6277 3334
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