Hey guess what!
You know that luxurious item you’ve been lashing out on once a month because you’re a total opulence slut, because you’re a lady who likes the finer things in life, because you buy what you want, when you want it? Great news, the government has made your naughty little indulgence cheaper by law today! Yep, the goods and services tax applied to female sanitary products (which were considered ‘luxury’ items – please feel my extreme eye roll through the screen) was abolished in parliament today – clot clot hooray!
Way back in 1999 when Ricky Martin was straight and Cher was having a career resurgence (do you believe in life after love?) the complete and utter geniuses in the liberal party who were drafting the GST laws (this is gonna shock you right down to your previously taxed flaps) were mostly men, from a mostly male cabinet (#MEN). Those men felt that female sanitary items should fall in the LUXURY category and slapped a 10% tax on our periods. Because, look I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell choose to get my period each month and HOW DARE anyone (science, biology, mother nature, anyone with a brain: I’m looking at you) suggest it’s an involuntary bodily function that can’t be controlled. You just don’t want it enough, where’s your willpower ladies?! Oh, and can I please regale you with the all-consuming JOY I experience when the crippling cramps, hunger and mood swings strike. Every twenty eight days I’m known to lean out my kitchen window and yell with reckless abandon: YASS! IT’S TIME FOR SOME GLAMOROUS BLEEDING!
These same idiots, in all their wisdom, felt that condoms, lube and viagra were definitely NOT luxury items, that they were actual necessities and should be tax free. I know: The bombshells just keep on dropping! Poor men, having sex is so out of their control, it’s not their choice or fault, you guys.
The thing is, the tax should never have been there in the first place. And dare I say it: If more women were included in the decision-making process, this would never have happened.
Liberal Party HQ
Barry: I reckon we should put tampons and pads in the luxury items category.
LITERALLY ANY FEMALE IN EARSHOT OF THIS POLICY MEETING: How about you go fuck yourself Barry?
Barry: So that’s a ‘no’ to the tampon tax then.
Do you know the government were making THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS a year from our menstrual blood? I hope you find that as outrageous as I do. After 18 years of campaigning, the announcement today that every single state and territory will make sanitary products exempt from the GST is a huge win for all Australian women and their vaginas.
Now go out and treat yo’ self ladies. Get some of those breast-feeding pads, pumps and nipple shields which are still on the luxury items list and get FUCKED UP y’all!
Speaking of luxury items: new community badges have come in! If you missed out last time, order now. QUICK. (And subscribe below to my newsletter to be the first people alerted for new merch.)
