Bill Shorten says an elected Labor government would not remove the tax on tampons despite initially supporting the idea when it came up last year.
The Labor leader was speaking at the Sky News People's Forum in Brisbane on Wednesday night, and answered "no" to a question on whether Labor would remove the tax on tampons.
Currently, the 10% GST is applied to women's sanitary products, but not to other products such as condoms and lubricant. Critics claim it's an unfair tax that targets women.
A Labor spokesperson said it was an issue for state governments and NSW and Western Australia effectively killed off the move.
Last year, Shorten supported the removal, suggesting to the former prime minister Tony Abbott the GST be taken off tampons and applied to Netflix.
A deal was reached in the UK earlier this year to remove a similar tampon tax after a vocal campaign.
The Turnbull government does not plan to remove the tax.