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Sex Party Calls Tampon Tax a Bloody Disgrace |
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Written by ASP Staff
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Wednesday, 18 August 2010 12:21 |
An Australian Sex Party Senate candidate in Victoria has called on the major parties to support the removal of the GST on tampons and pads. As part of the Sex Party’s sex education policy suite, Ms Katie Blakey said that the only reason tampons and pads were included in the GST was because Parliament had determined them to be ‘luxury’ items.
Ms Blakey said that Australian women were forced to pay (on average) an extra dollar every month for pads or tampons via the GST. Per year, the GST raised from female sanitary products is over $14 million.
She called on the major parties to either scrap the tax or commit to quarantining the revenue to go to research on ovarian cancer. “Ovaries and tampons are intimately connected. When an egg is not fertilized, the corpus luteum gradually disappears, estrogen and progesterone levels drop, the thickened uterine lining is shed – and we need something to mop up the blood! Why should products connected to a biological function like this be taxed?
“Blood, cramps, PMT, strings, plastic wrappers…there’s nothing luxurious about the whole thing”, she said. “With a menstrual cycle every month, 12 times a year for 30 or 40 years, this tax is something women are constantly reminded of. It is a tax on sex and I encourage all women to vote for the Sex Party to get rid of it”.
The Australian Sex Party considers the tax to be a breach of women’s rights. “The implementation of the luxury items goods and services tax on sanitary products is a misuse of application, is gender specific, and is therefore a form of sex discrimination”, Ms Blakey said.
Video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j09Qt6izHnc
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