Abolish the Breastfeeding Tax

With the abolition of the tampon tax on 1st January 2019, women have now started campaigning to have the breastfeeding tax removed as well. The breastfeeding tax is the 10% GST that applies to breastfeeding aids. The breastfeeding aids include breast pumps, nipple shields and supplemental nursing systems.

Although the ATO only collects $2 million a year from mothers on breastfeeding aids and equipment, the tax is deeply unpopular. It doesn’t make any sense that infant formula is GST exempt as a ‘basic fresh food’, whilst breastfeeding is taxed. As Naomi Drew a certified lactation consultant said ‘How much fresher and healthier than breastmilk can you get?’

The benefits of breastfeeding include:

• For babies – lower risk of necrotising enterocolitis, diarrhoea, respiratory illness, middle ear infection, type 1 diabetes and childhood leukemia.
• For mothers – faster recovery from childbirth, lower risk breast and ovarian cancer, reduced maternal depression.

We believe the breastfeeding tax is a sexist dumb tax which was designed by Canberra bureaucrats in 2000 without much thought. As such, we would like the tax scrapped asap.

Would you support the abolition of the breastfeeding tax?