Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year I again ran my budget speech competition for year 10, 11 and 12 students in my electorate. It posed the question: if you were the Treasurer, what would be the one big idea you'd like to see in the budget? I'm so grateful to all the students who entered, and I congratulate them for their excellent ideas and really fantastic writing skills. We had entries on topics as varied as youth mental health to free school meals for every Australian school student.

I'm really pleased to announce that Imogen Polder, a year 10 student from St Clare's College, was the winner of the competition. Imogen wrote about the pink tax, and she said this:

Why do I have to pay more for pink razors compared to blue razors? Why are products suddenly more expensive when they're designed for women?

This is not just annoying, it's completely unfair! Women are already earning less than men, only 79c for every $1 men earn, and these increased prices just to make thousands of lives more difficult.

If I were treasurer for the day, I would ensure that the pink tax disappears from our supermarkets, forever.

By ensuring prices for women's items are dropped and penalties are enforced on companies that continue with this despicable behaviour, women around Australia will have more accessibility to these products and health issues will reduce.

We are not in medieval times. Women should not have to make makeshift period products purely because they cannot afford branded items.

Sadly, this is the reality for many women today. Supermarkets and major companies do not listen and acknowledge our needs, and this must change.

By enforcing financial penalties, major companies will quickly realise that this is an unfair and inequal practise that they can easily stop, just by spending a small amount of extra money.

Altogether, as treasurer, I would ensure that women pay the same prices as men, creating a ripple effect that will change the entire world for the better.

Congratulations again, Imogen, for your excellent speech. As the prize for her speech, Imogen and her mother were my guests at the Treasurer's budget speech on Tuesday night. Imogen, it was a pleasure to meet you, and thank you for your advocacy for a more gender equal economy.

I also want to acknowledge St Clare's College's engagement each year with the budget. It also had a year 11 economics class and their teacher, Philip Coe, come and visit. We get them tickets for the budget speech. I love seeing students getting engaged with the budget, and our parliament more generally. There is such a great opportunity for this here in Canberra, and the budget is such a great opportunity for young economics students to see economics in action and be inspired. I'd really like to see more schools in Canberra get in touch with me if they're interested. And thanks again to everyone who engaged with my competition this year.

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