Queensland abortion bill: Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk won’t declare position ahead of vote

Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to reveal whether she will support her own government’s abortion legislation in parliament.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Liam Kidston.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has refused to reveal whether she will support her own government’s abortion legislation in parliament next week, despite previously indicating her support for decriminalisation.

The state’s parliament is widely expected next week to pass the bill, spearheaded by the Premier’s left-wing deputy and heir-apparent Jackie Trad, to remove abortion from the criminal code and enshrine it as a health issue.

However Ms Palaszczuk, a right-faction MP and self-described “Catholic premier”, today refused to declare her position on the bill which Church leaders have warned would allow “abortion until the moment of birth”.

“I will be voting on my conscience as well, and everyone will see how I vote on the day,” Ms Palaszczuk told reporters.

Ms Palaszczuk said it was “absolutely critical that we have a respectful debate” and she would not pressure MPs over their vote.

“The members (of parliament) … have a very big decision to make and they should not have to be declaring, one way or the other, how they’ll vote.”

The Liberal National opposition yesterday agreed its MPs would be allowed a conscience vote on the legislation.

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington has pledged to vote with her conscience against the bill. Her deputy Tim Mander, a former head of Scripture Union Queensland, will also vote against it.

Labor frontbencher Mark Furner, who is also Catholic, said he was undecided about the bill and was planning to “engage with a few more constituents” before declaring his position.

Ms Palaszczuk, announcing the legislation in July, said she was “very proud” to declare abortion “a health issue for women”.

“It is not for me to tell another woman what to do when she is confronted by these health issues,” she said at the time.

Ms Palaszczuk, whose grandparents were Polish, described herself in 2015 as “a Catholic premier”.

According to The Catholic Leader, Ms Palaszczuk said of her childhood: “There were no less than eight pictures of (then Pope) John Paul II on display in the small lounge room in Crocus Street, Inala.

“We also had to remain completely quiet whenever the pope spoke (in broadcasts).”

Ms Palaszczuk’s electorate of Inala, in Brisbane’s southwest, is working class seat with a large immigrant population.

The overlapping federal seat of Oxley recorded 60.3 per cent support for marriage equality at last year’s postal plebiscite.

The legislation, if passed, would abortion on ­request for women up to 22 weeks’ pregnant.

After 22 weeks, women would need two ­doctors to agree that a termination was appropriate given “medical circumstances” and the woman’s “current and future physical, psychological and ­social circumstances”.

The law would also establish “safe access zones” to prevent protesters targeting women outside clinics — a version of which is currently under High Court challenge amid claims it breaches the constitutional freedom of political communication.

Conservative MPs have also criticised a proposed section requiring medical professionals who conscientiously object to abortion be required to refer a pregnant woman to a colleague who might perform a termination.

The LNP commands 39 seats of the unicameral parliament’s 93 seats. Only one of Labor’s 46 MPs, Jo-Ann Miller, have come out openly against the bill.

KAP’s three MPs have vowed to vote against the bill, as has One Nation MP Steve Andrew.

Greens MP Michael Berkman and independent Sandy Bolton were expected to vote in favour.

Griffith University political scientist Paul Williams said Ms Palaszczuk’s approach was different to previous leaders — such as John Howard, Anna Bligh and Peter Beattie — who declared their position ahead of a conscience vote to “set the tone” for wavering MPs.

“There could be some electoral hedging there not wanting to offend one side of the electorate or the other,” he said. “It may also be genuinely altruistic in terms of being a genuine consensus leader.”