By Natassia Chrysanthos and Paul Sakkal
Labor will weaponise Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s abortion stance in a last-minute advertising blitz attacking the Liberal National Party ahead of the Queensland election on the weekend, frustrating moves by senior Coalition frontbenchers to shut down a widening abortion debate.
Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Senator Jane Hume on Wednesday morning sought to hose down controversy after the Northern Territory senator said the federal Coalition should debate abortion issues and declared pregnancies ended after the first trimester were immoral.
Coalition MPs Jane Hume and Sussan Ley have shut down a federal debate on abortion after colleague Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said it should be on the national agenda.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
As senior Coalition women distanced themselves from the conversation, Price told colleagues privately that her remarks in an interview with this masthead on Tuesday were misrepresented.
However, when asked in the interview if the federal government should examine the topic of aborted babies being born alive, and whether some state laws made late-term abortion too accessible – political issues that have emerged in Queensland and South Australia – Price said those debates “absolutely need to be had”.
“Those tough conversations need to be had within the party room,” she said. And asked whether the Coalition should shy away from abortion debates, she said: “I don’t believe so, no. When it comes to the lives of anybody, including unborn children, these are issues we as leaders need to make sure we are thoroughly ... debating in order to make decisions.”
Ley on Wednesday said the Coalition had no plans to change abortion laws. “Obviously, individuals have their own views, and Jacinta is entitled, as a member of the Nationals party, to her own view. But the federal Liberals have no intention of changing the settings when it comes to this issue,” she said on Sky News.
Hume was even clearer: “It has been an issue raised by fringe parties in a state election. It is not an issue for federal politics,” she said, also on Sky.
“What I can assure you, and assure your viewers, and assure all voters, is that a Dutton-led Coalition government has no plans, no policy and no interest in unwinding women’s reproductive rights.”
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, when asked about the issue on ABC’s RN Breakfast, said Price had “very strong views on the issue” but it was one for state and territory governments.
“This is obviously a topic that has to be approached very respectfully, very sensitively,” she said.
Their comments suggest the Coalition is keen to avoid any federal debate on the issue after the Queensland LNP was wedged when Katter’s Australian Party promised to force a vote on walking back abortion if the LNP were elected this weekend.
A Queensland Labor campaign official, not authorised to speak publicly, said abortion had unexpectedly become the defining issue of the campaign.
They said Labor was working on social media graphics highlighting Price’s comments as part of a final week advertising splurge worth several hundred thousand dollars.
Price’s comments helped reinforce Labor’s message that some conservative Coalition MPs were serious about limiting abortion, the official said. “People are talking about it at polling booths because they’ve seen it on TikTok and other social platforms, but also on traditional media. It’s everywhere.”
Charlotte Mortlock, founder of Hilma’s Network which aims to recruit women to the Liberals, said it was “so dangerous and incredibly reckless to fly the kite on abortion”.
“Women in Australia have been watching what’s happened in the US with great concern. The Liberal Party is not a Trumpian Republican Party,” she said.
Teal MP Allegra Spender also said she was concerned abortion was being turned into “some sort of Trumpian weapon in this country” and that Australians did not want the division.
Abortion has been heavily politicised in the United States since abortion rights case Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.
National Party Senator Matt Canavan on Wednesday said he welcomed the Katter’s Australian Party’s efforts and thought that “maybe the pendulum has swung too far” on abortion. But he said it wasn’t a federal matter and that timing of the debate was important.
“There should be an examination of what’s going on, especially given the changes that we’ve seen in recent years to these state laws,” he said. “[But I] don’t think this is an issue best prosecuted through the heat of an election campaign.”
Privately, several conservative Coalition MPs said they held similar views to Price but did not believe airing them publicly was worthwhile given the Commonwealth has little power to legislate on the issue.
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