Daily Mail: Giant dancing tampons and a mobile billboard addressed to Prime Minister Tony Abbott could be seen outside the Parliament today, in a woman’s campaign to abolish GST for sanitary products.
Vimalarajah
University student Subeta Vimalarajah, who has gathered more than 98,000 signatures for her Stop Taxing My Period petition, exposed the billboard and assembled a group of women dressed as giant tampons on the lawns of the Parliament House this morning.The campaign follows Joe Hockey’s appearance on ABC’s Q&A on Monday, where he agreed that the tax should be scrapped, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott indicated that this is a matter for the state treasurer to figure out.
‘Mr. Abbott has backed away from addressing this inequality at every opportunity, diverting responsibility to anyone but himself,’ Ms Vimalarajah said in a press release.
‘Sanitary items are an essential health item, used at least once a month by at least half the population. It’s time our Minister for Women recognised that periods aren’t paychecks, they’re a pain.’
Ms. Vimalarajah, got the opportunity to ask Mr Hockey a direct line of questioning regarding the tax on the ABC TV program Q&A on Monday night. ‘Mr. Hockey, do you think that sanitary products are an essential health good for half the population?’ she asked.
After the audience laughed and applauded Ms. Vimalarajah’s for being so straightforward, Mr. Hockey simply replied with: ‘I think so.’
When probed further by host Tony Jones if the GST should be removed from such products, Mr. Hockey added: ‘It probably should, yes, the answer’s yes.’ After the segment, Treasurer Joe Hockey promised to broach the topic of tampon tax with his state counterparts.
‘I’ll give you this undertaking, I’ll raise it with the states in the next meeting of the treasurers in July, I think,’ he said. Ms. Vimalarajah beamed as she replied: ‘Thank you so much, that would be great.’
After the billboard launch, a community picnic was put together to celebrate – with ‘period friendly’ snacks like chocolate, biscuits and sweets.
Read the rest here.
Boo hoo…life isn’t fair, get over it. Lots of “essential health items” are taxed. Why should you get a special break? Besides, I thought liberals loved paying their taxes to support the poor and needy. Oh wait, guess when it comes to their wallets they want an exemption.
And if you want to be taken seriously as a womyn, recognize that your periods aren’t an inequality. It’s a God-given bodily function that is your personal responsibility.
If Ms. Vimalarajah truly cared about taxes on sanitary items that affect the WHOLE population, she’d be demanding a recall of the toilet paper tax (which is a rate of 10%).
DCG
