Tony Abbott calls tampon tax cut a ‘politically correct mistake’

A MAJOR plan to scrap GST from tampons sales has been launched. Some think it’s a big step for equality, but it’s also been slammed.

IT TOOK just hours for Tony Abbott to smack down plans to scrap GST on tampon sales in Australia as a “politically correct mistake”.

In a speech on the eve of International Women’s Day, Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek described the decision to slap tax on women’s sanitary products as a “dumb decision”.

“Twenty years later it’s still a dumb decision, and we just have to fix it,” she told the National Press Club in Canberra. “Australia levies GST on tampons but we don’t apply it to Viagra.

“Only a bunch of blokes sitting around a table would come to the conclusion that sanitary pads are anything other than an essential good.”

However, just hours later, the former Prime Minister took to Sydney radio station 2GB to tell listeners that he thought the idea was an example of Labor jumping on a politically correct bandwagon for votes.

Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tanya Plibersek unveiled the quality plans yesterday. Picture: Gary Ramage

He referenced a similar push from his former treasurer Joe Hockey in 2015, who looked at whether GST should be removed from tampons and other women’s sanitary items.

“My distinguished treasurer was wrong then, and Tanya Plibersek is wrong now,” Mr Abbott told 2GB.

“Look, once you start having these sorts of exemptions, where does it end? Where does it end?

“We have to broaden the tax base, not start carving out politically correct exceptions.

“But this is typical of the contemporary Labor Party — there is not a bandwagon that they won’t jump on if they think there’s a vote in it.”

However, Ms Plibersek said Australia was the worst member of the OECD industrialised countries for “gender governance”.

Tony Abbott said the plans sounds like an “anti-man agenda”. Picture: Kym Smith

She called for 50 per cent of senior public service roles to be filled by women in 2025 during her National Press Club speech.

However, Mr Abbott also attacked the quota idea too in his 2GB interview.

“I think quotas are a problem because then people aren’t always thought to be there on merit,” he told listeners. “I’m a little worried about what often sounds like an anti-man agenda.

“In the end, you’ve got to have people there that are capable of doing the job because they are the best available at doing the job.”

Ms Plibersek also added that the money measures affecting women in recent Budgets had been significant.

“Take the Government’s tax cuts in the 2017 budget, the tax cuts for high-income earners. Three-quarters of the beneficiaries of those tax cuts are men,” she said.

Labor want to scrap GST on tampon sales. Picture: News Corp Australia

“This followed four attempts in four years to slash paid parental leave by vilifying mothers as rorters and fraudsters for simply claiming their workplace entitlements.

“The same 2017 budget introduced effective marginal tax rates of over 100 per cent for some women as a result of the increased Medicare levy, earlier loan repayments for a graduates and other measures.

“That’s what happens when you don’t consider the gendered impacts of the decisions you’re making.”