{"id":471035,"date":"2026-05-06T09:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471035\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:45:12","slug":"exercise-physiologists-campaign-to-axe-the-tax-on-their-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/471035\/","title":{"rendered":"Exercise physiologists campaign to ‘axe the tax’ on their services"},"content":{"rendered":"

The peak body for exercise physiologists says its members are being discriminated against with “unfair” taxes that other health services do not have to pay.<\/p>\n

Exercise and Sports Science Australia (ESSA) has launched an “axe the tax” campaign to scrap the 10 per cent GST on exercise physiology.<\/p>\n

Australian health services generally do not have to pay GST, but exercise physiology is not on the exemption list.<\/p>\n

Brisbane exercise physiologist Tim Dogue said it was an outrageous tax on chronically ill Australians trying to improve their health.<\/p>\n

“Exercise physiologists are, I think, the only allied health profession that still has GST applicable to its services,” Mr Dogue said.<\/p>\n

“It’s crazy when you consider we’re providing healthcare and essential services for a really important demographic of people with chronic diseases and comorbidities.”<\/p>\n

Exercise physiologists use specific workouts to treat injuries, diabetes, arthritis, obesity, surgery rehabilitation, chronic pain, and various diseases.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jenny Dogue says she can go gardening once more. (612 ABC Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

New lease on life<\/p>\n

Mr Dogue’s mother Jenny Dogue became one of his clients in order to treat a serious, chronic lung disease in addition to knee and elbow injuries.<\/p>\n

Ms Dogue said she had regained the ability to walk upstairs and do the gardening, activities that were previously off-limits.<\/p>\n

“We all came in with our injuries and whinge-uries, and now we strut around feeling stronger and less at risk of the things that generally happen to people who’ve had lots of birthdays,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Apart from the physical gains, there’s the added benefit of the social and emotional health that comes with it.<\/p>\n

“We do our workouts, we go for coffee afterwards, we get excited about each other’s bone density scores.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ESSA chief executive Katie Lyndon said exercise physiology was a newly emerging field when the GST was created in the year 2000.<\/p>\n

She said it had since gained recognition within the medical field, but the tax had remained unchanged.<\/p>\n

Ms Lyndon said the costs were being passed on to chronically ill Australians in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n

“It is unconscionable that critically important healthcare supporting Australia’s most vulnerable is not GST-free,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We are recognised by Medicare, the Department of Veteran Affairs, Workcover, the NDIS, private health, aged care, so we are well embedded in the Australian healthcare system.”<\/p>\n

Senator David Pocock will table an “axe the tax” petition to federal parliament.<\/p>\n

The Australian Treasury has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The peak body for exercise physiologists says its members are being discriminated against with “unfair” taxes that other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[206661,206658,94597,18,206660,206659,133653,121650,525,16234,135,19,17,161263],"class_list":{"0":"post-471035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-allied-health","9":"tag-axe-the-tax","10":"tag-david-pocock","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-essa","13":"tag-exercise-and-sports-science-australia","14":"tag-exercise-physiologist","15":"tag-exercise-physiology","16":"tag-fitness","17":"tag-gst","18":"tag-health","19":"tag-ie","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-petition"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116526994870253694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}