Mark Latham delivers stunning attack on Gladys Berejiklian over abortion bill

Mark Latham accuses Gladys Berejiklian of ‘betraying the people of NSW’ by supporting the abortion bill.

One Nation leader Mark Latham. Picture: AAP

One Nation leader Mark Latham has delivered a stunning attack against Premier Gladys Berejiklian during debate on the abortion bill in the upper house, accusing her of “betraying the parliament and people of NSW” by supporting the bill decriminalising abortion and labelling her “dictatorial”.

Ms Berejiklian backed down yesterday and her government moved that the abortion bill did not have to be resolved this week, with debate to occur today and tomorrow and amendments to be moved in the upper house in three weeks’ time.

But as debate went on, and with thousands protesting against the bill outside parliament in Martin Place tonight, Mr Latham accused Ms Berejiklian of operating with a left-wing cross-party cabal.

“With some fanfare after the March election, the Premier said she wanted to ‘modernise’ the NSW Parliament,” Mr Latham said.

“Instead, she has taken us back to the dark ages.

“The idea that in 2019, in an era of political openness and social media, a cross-party cabal of left-wing MPs has been meeting in secret in this building for months, plotting to hijack the parliament and ram through a law on one of the most divisive and sensitive issues in the state’s history, is simply appalling.

“Each of them stands condemned.

“So too a Premier who urged it on.

“A Premier who discarded government business in the Legislative Assembly and made scores of hours of debate available for a private members’ bill introduced by the Green-left Independent Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich.

“One member in one seat who won 18,000 votes at the last election — that is, less than 0.3% of the people of the state of NSW.

“But that’s the Berejiklian-Greenwich Government for you: minority interests, with a minority agenda, using backdoor means to try to dominate the majority.

“I campaigned for four months for State Parliament and no one in the electorate advocated for an abortion bill.

“Hundreds of other issues were seen as more important.

“This was to have been an ambush whereby the lower house would debate and pass the abortion bill in one week and the Legislative Council would do the same the following week.

“What we are witnessing here is a weakening of the traditional two-party system, where power in this place does not necessarily rest in the Liberal Party or the Labor Party, but has been co-opted and controlled by a secretive, cross-party cabal.

“It’s more evidence of the march through institutions, especially in the National Party.

“Once social conservatives, some of its members are now greener than the Greens.

“When will this government ever learn?

“It rushed for a greyhounds ban and got it wrong.

“It rushed in council amalgamations and messed them up.

“It rushed in lockout-laws and destroyed the reputation and economic viability of a once great city and its night-life.

“In the common law, abortions in NSW have been permissible since an important court ruling in 1971. Those pushing the proposal now before the House want to remove abortion from the NSW Crimes Act.

“This would have been a relatively straightforward task if they had been open about it, engaged in public consultation and started with a moderate, commonsense bill.

“Instead, they have tried to ram through Australia’s most radically extreme abortion laws without adequate safeguards for late-term abortions, gender selection abortions (parents who only want boys) and medical mistake abortions (where the baby is born alive).

“The Left love to lecture us about ‘gender equality’, but in this bill, they refuse to outlaw the barbaric practice of people not wanting children because they are female children.”

“If it’s true that no one supports gender selection abortions, then why aren’t they automatically outlawed in the legislation?”

Former minister and Nationals MP Niall Blair told parliament he would support the Bill and said it was about: “Can we trust women in NSW to make the right decisions for them and their families. Absolutely we can.”

Mr Blair said to have an abortion acted against women’s maternal instincts and it was agonising for them.

Finance Minister Damien Tudehope said he would oppose the Bill because he believed it endorsed taking the lives of children.

The Bill is still expected to pass — thanks to Labor and Nationals votes with the majority of Liberals opposing it — but the government’s hopes it could be resolved in two to three weeks, and the issue gotten out of the way, were dumped by the premier yesterday.