In the year 2000, the Federal Government’s decision to keep the GST on tampons was met with outrage by some sections of the community.
Young women dressed in makeshift superhero costumes to protest the decision, while others threw tampons and sanitary pads at cabinet ministers.
Fifteen years later, the tampon tax remains a hot-button issue, with Treasurer Joe Hockey saying he believes it should be removed.
Here we look back at some of the key players and quotes from the 2000 debate.
MICHAEL WOOLDRIDGE
The then health minister was forced to apologise after likening tampons to shaving cream.
“Well, as a bloke, I’d like shaving cream exempt, but I’m not expecting it to be,” he said.
When put to him that condoms were exempt from GST, Dr Wooldridge also added:
“Well, condoms prevent illness. I wasn’t aware that menstruation was an illness.”
JOHN HOWARD
The prime minister insisted it was about tax consistency, not taxing women.
“I mean, of course if you look at tampons in isolation – just as you look at something else in isolation – you can mount an argument to take the tax off it,” he said.
“I could mount an argument to take the tax off children’s clothes. I could mount an argument to take the tax off old people’s clothes, I could mount an argument for a whole lot of things.
“But we’ve had that argument and if you start doing that, you will have no GST in the end, and the whole system will begin to unravel.”
JOHN HERRON
The Queensland Senator stuck to a similar script:
“Preventative health measures in general are not incorporated with the original legislation, due to the unclear and unmanageable boundaries this would create. Preventative health is a broad-ranging and subjective term that could be applied to goods such as health spa holidays.”
PETER COSTELLO
The then treasurer was adamant the Government had “got it right” and it would “not be changing the legislation”.
Asked if his wife thought he had made a mistake on the tampon tax, he said:
“Look, my wife gives me advice on lots of things and it’s nearly always right. But … I never go on the radio and disclose my wife’s advice. It’s always given on a very confidential basis,” he said.
MEG LEES
The political tussle over tampons saw the Democrats leader admit she had not realised the items were tax exempt before the GST.
“Well I’m afraid it just went past. It was one of those issues that wasn’t, I guess, on the front issue. Yes, it was a mistake on our part but, as we look at the complexity of this package, hopefully people will understand that the minutiae sometimes is not looked at in fine detail.”
JUDITH TROETH
The Victorian Senator accepted the GST on tampons, saying she took “the bigger view that once we make exemptions the system will fall apart”.
DE-ANNE KELLY
The Queensland Liberal described the campaign against taxing tampons as a “Barbie doll issue to intimidate a largely conservative male cabinet”.
JENNY MACKLIN
The Opposition’s health spokeswoman was against the tax, though Labor itself did not revisit the issue under the Rudd and Gillard governments.
“This is a $20 million tax for the first time on all Australian women who need to use either tampons or pads every month, the first time they’ve ever had to pay this tax, and it’s a huge tax on an essential sanitary item,” she said.