Kylie Lang: Premier’s abortion scare tactics are just grubby politics

The Premier has been playing grubby politics on the abortion issue while the Opposition hammers home his tired government’s massive failures, writes Kylie Lang.

The question is not why David Crisafulli took so long to say he supports a woman’s right to choose but why Steven Miles waited until a few days before the election to ask the Opposition Leader outright, yes or no.

The Premier has been playing grubby politics on the abortion issue – with little else his tired government can use to try to sway voters – while the Opposition hammers home Labor’s massive failures on youth crime, health, housing and cost of living.

Mr Miles delayed asking the obvious until Tuesday night’s Sky News/The Courier-Mail leaders’ debate. It was the final clash, with Mr Miles passing up two previous debate opportunities to ask his rival this: “Do you believe in a woman’s right to choose, yes or no?”

Mr Crisafulli replied: “It probably won’t work for his TikTok, but yes.”

Labor has been scaremongering with claims the LNP is anti-abortion.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles on Tuesday asked David Crisafulli outright for a “yes or no” answer on his abortion views. Picture: David Clark

This loosely stems from a conscience vote in 2018, when Mr Crisafulli, then a newly minted shadow minister for environment and tourism, voted against pregnancy termination reforms.

The reforms, successfully passed, decriminalised abortion but also allowed for late-term abortions after 22 weeks’ gestation. It’s a fact that foetuses born before 26 weeks can survive, with medical treatment.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli ahead of their debate at the Queensland Media Club. Picture: NewsWire / John Gass

Mr Crisafulli has not explained what Labor is painting as a major discrepancy between the position he held six years ago and his position now.

Come to think of it, neither has federal Labor’s Penny Wong, an openly gay minister who voted against the Greens’ bid to legalise same-sex marriage in 2008 and then in 2010 argued against the idea because marriage is “an institution between a man and a woman’’.

Earlier this year the Foreign Affairs Minister wed her long-term female partner Sophie Allouache.

But back to Queensland.

Abortion would never have become an issue in this election if not for crossbencher Robbie Katter.

Motivated by his own political ambitions, including trying to win votes from One Nation, the KAP boss decided to roll out the red carpet for ultra-right conservatives.

In the second week of the campaign, Mr Katter threatened to put forward a bill to repeal the 2018 legislation, dragging Queensland back into the dark ages.

No Premier in their right (or left) mind would stand for that.

What a way to be a one-term government.

Since Mr Katter’s October 8 threat, Mr Crisafulli has reiterated – monotonously, yes, because some people are slow to catch on – that there would be no change to abortion law under a government he leads.

Then on Tuesday, just hours before the debate in front of 100 undecided voters, Mr Katter folded.

Softening his stance, he said he would only seek a reintroduction of his bill which mandated that a baby born alive after a botched abortion would be given medical care.

Currently, parents of babies born before 26 weeks can refuse.

Mr Katter’s moderate approach – backflip, if you will – would suggest he is reading the room.

Specifically, the rooms in Mundingburra, the Townsville electorate with the highest number of 18-29 year olds in regional Queensland.

Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter. Picture: Evan Morgan

This is a cohort which has grown up with social media – hence Steven Miles’ awkward TikTok videos to spruik his spin – and Mr Katter has realised his party has a good shot at taking Mundingburra from Labor.

Mr Katter could also have benefited from hindsight, recognising the divisive nature of the issue he created and regretting giving Labor a free kick.

His standing down has quashed the possibility of a conscience vote.

Mr Crisafulli might have regrets of his own. Had he said on October 8 that he was pro-choice, he could have won more of the youth vote.

However, he could have risked disunity within his party by angering those MPs who are not in favour of abortion. The LNP operates without the factional system that defines Labor and, to win an election, it cannot be seen to implode.

David Crisafulli has probably chosen the lesser of two evils, letting Labor continue its smear campaign while strategically trying to protect his own party from losing an otherwise unlosable election.

Either way, abortion is an issue that didn’t deserve to figure so prominently in how Queenslanders cast their vote.

It was a manufactured distraction and both the LNP and Labor know it.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
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LOVE

David Crisafulli vowing to ditch ministers in his LNP government if they “aren’t delivering what they have been tasked to deliver”. He said on Thursday it wouldn’t be “musical chairs”, moving from one portfolio to another – a hallmark of the nine years of the Palaszczuk-Miles show.

LOATHE

Lidia Thorpe’s disgusting behaviour, firstly her outburst in front of King Charles at Parliament House on Monday (one of the most cringey things I’ve seen) and secondly claiming to have intentionally blundered the oath of allegiance she recited when sworn in as a senator. Time to go!