The tampon tax was axed after parliament received a petition with 104,185 signatures. The climate e-petition has hit 160,000 names, but those hoping for imminent action shouldn’t hold their breath

What do tampons and climate change have in common?

It’s not just their environmental toll (seriously: take a look at what’s in some disposable menstruation products and then tell me the Diva Cup seems weird) – both issues attracted the largest number of signatures to an Australian parliament e-petition.

Until the petition calling for parliament to declare a climate emergency came along with its 160,000 (and counting) signatures, the March 2018 petition calling for an end to the “tampon tax” held the e-petition honour, with 104,185 signatures.

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The tampon tax was axed just a few months later, with the states and territories agreeing to forgo the $30m or so lost in GST revenue, and a government still keen to snub out potential election issues.

The petition, one of many in the years since the GST was applied to women’s sanitary products, served as a flashpoint in a debate that had raged for almost two decades.

But while the campaign was ultimately successful, it wasn’t the petition itself which led to the change, but the political will to pick it up.

Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) For the curious: the official record for the largest ever petition presented to the House is 1,210,471 signatures on a paper petition on pharmacy funding, presented to the House in 2014. pic.twitter.com/dMDuZBAF1a

As with most things in life, when it comes to parliamentary petitions, timing is everything.

If it’s the biggest e-petition to be delivered to the parliament, does that mean the parliament will be forced into action?

In a word, no. Unlike the UK, there is no signature threshold that would force the Australian House of Representatives to debate a petition. A private member, which is any MP who is not a minister, can go through the normal processes to apply to the selection committee to try and move a motion to discuss the petition during the private members’ business section of a sitting, but the selection committee has to agree to it. If that doesn’t work, or a motion to discuss the petition fails, which given the government has the numbers in the House, happens every time the government doesn’t initiate something, then a MP could discuss it during a 90-second statement (short speeches made to the House about whatever the scheduled MP wants to talk about, just before question time) or, one of the political parties could make it a “matter of public importance”.

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But I thought if a petition gets 10,000 signatures they have to talk about it in parliament.

Nope, but there are attempts to have the voice of the people recognised in this way.

Late last year an inquiry into parliamentary petitions delivered this report, which recommended MPs be given 10 minutes on Mondays when parliament sits to present petitions. It also recommended that any petition with 20,000 signatures be considered for debate in the federation chamber, which is where spillover debates and speeches are made, so the House can keep on with its agenda. It may not be the main chamber, but it would still be recorded in Hansard, the official parliamentary record. That’s pretty similar to how the UK handles its signature threshold. But any changes – if any are made at all – won’t be coming in time for this petition; the government is yet to respond to any of the recommendations within the 2018 report.

What about all the other petitions? Why don’t I hear about them?

For a petition to be counted as a petition on the parliamentary website, it just needs to meet the requirements for lodging and have at least one signature. Which is not exactly the most onerous conditions. So there are a lot of petitions being hosted on the website. A lot. If your pet peeve isn’t on there, it wouldn’t be hard to rectify that. But it also means that without an external campaign letting people know it is there, it is easy for petitions to get lost. If you do want to know more about the petitions being hosted on the parliamentary site, head here. The friendly team at the Twitter account @aboutthehouse are also very helpful.

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So what will happen with this one? Is it a waste of time?

Having your voice heard is never a waste of time, so if you feel strongly enough about an issue to log on to a parliamentary website and put your name to it, go nuts. The petition doesn’t close until 16 October, which is in the middle of the next sitting week and it has already attracted enough attention that you can guarantee it will be raised. Particularly in light of Scott Morrison’s comments to the UN last week. Both the Greens and Labor will make note of this petition and attempt to have the parliament recognise it, in some way. But even that won’t result in the parliament declaring a climate emergency. It’s a numbers game, and Labor and the Greens, even with all of the crossbench, simply don’t have them. But don’t lose hope – after all, you are reading an explainer on it, which means that it has already made enough of an impact to get people talking about parliamentary e-petitions, something normal people don’t really spend time thinking about. And the tampon tax was axed. Sure, it took almost 20 years, but when the ocean is lapping at Cronulla Stadium, even the most stubborn of men will begin caring about that.