Source : the age
NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman says he refuses to “cave to brazen bullying” after vocal anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe threatened to lead a grassroots campaign against his leadership if he dared to support a bill to change the state’s termination laws.
Premier Chris Minns also stared down Howe’s threats on Wednesday, warning the law professor from South Australia that her “American-style misinformation campaigns” had no place in Australian politics.
NSW Parliament has heard Joanna Howe threatened to run a campaign against parties that supported broadening abortion access.
In a powerful speech in parliament on Tuesday night, Speakman said Howe told him in an email that she would rally all her supporters to run a targeted 20-month campaign against NSW Labor in five marginal seats with conservative communities if Minns backed changes to abortion laws.
However, Howe – an ALP member – told Speakman she would instead divert those resources to target him if the Liberal leader backed the changes.
Speakman said he would not “cave to brazen bullying like this nor the Americanisation of the NSW politics”. “I will vote for the bill,” Speakman told parliament. Minns will also support the bill.
Howe, a former union official, lives in South Australia but has been in NSW during the debate to amend abortion laws, which will allow nurses and midwives to prescribe medical terminations up to nine weeks.
NSW Premier Chris Minns, seen in an in-camera multiple exposure image at the Inner West Council Works Depot on Wednesday.Credit: Sam Mooy
Howe has led rallies outside Parliament House and inundated MPs with correspondence demanding they vote against the bill. Abortion was decriminalised in NSW in 2019, and these changes are amending the laws to bring them in line with the rest of mainland Australia.
She fired back at Speakman and Minns on Wednesday, insisting that as a political activist, she had every right to speak up and vehemently denied spreading any misinformation.
“Speakman should not be using parliamentary privilege to call me a bully when I have a democratic right to advocate for him to vote in a certain way,” Howe said.
“In fact, it was out of courtesy that I contacted him to tell him I would be campaigning against him if he did not vote in a certain way. That is not bullying. It sounds like Speakman would prefer to live in a totalitarian state.”
Labor and Coalition MPs have been allowed a conscience vote on the amended abortion bill, which was introduced by Greens MP Amanda Cohn earlier this year following a NSW Health review of termination laws.
Minns warned Howe had spread “enormous amounts of misinformation” and “lies” through her social media, causing people to believe the legislative changes were far more extensive than they were.
NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman says he will not be bullied by anti-abortion campaigners.Credit: Kate Geraghty
“As for threatening politicians about what you will or won’t do, that’s a matter for activists, but generally speaking, Australian politicians, regardless of their background or ideology, react incredibly poorly to that kind of threat,” Minns said.
Howe said Minns accused her of lying about MPs’ voting records, and demanded he apologise.
“I would ask the Premier to clarify his comments because I have never lied about MPs’ voting records so he should apologise or be prepared to be sued.”
Last week, moderate NSW Liberal MP Chris Rath invoked the Nazis’ genocide of Jews in the debate, saying it was “bizarre” that the termination of a pregnancy was categorised “as a human right to healthcare”.
Rath told parliament that “no person should have the power to determine what constitutes a valuable life” and past attempts had led to “some of the greatest atrocities known”.
“We need only to think of the historical prevalence of killing civilians en masse in warfare, the use of life-threatening shock therapies on the disabled if they were not murdered at a young age,” he said.
“Perhaps worst of all, the Nazis leading an entire people to believe that Jews were subhuman, worth less as a human being than you or I.”
Rath later issued a statement: “There was no intention on my part to draw any comparison [with Nazis]. I regret and apologise for the insensitive language that was used.”
The legislation before the house has been significantly pared back and has won support in both major parties. Minns and opposition health spokeswoman Kellie Sloane said they would support it after some of the more contentious elements of the bill were removed during debate in the upper house.
The original bill included provisions that would have strengthened laws requiring conscientious objectors to refer patients to abortion providers and legislated a responsibility for the health minister to ensure abortion services were provided within a “reasonable distance” from people’s homes.
Howe has been contacted for comment.
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