Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: The fight over abortion in Queensland had seemed settled. It
Speaker 1: was decriminalized in twenty eighteen and has enjoyed solid public
Speaker 1: support since then, But with Katta's Australian Party now promising
Speaker 1: to introduce a bill to repeal those laws in the
Speaker 1: new parliament, it's become a surprise issue heading into this
Speaker 1: weekend's election. The leader of the Liberal National Party, David
Speaker 1: Chris A Folly, has insisted he has no plans to
Speaker 1: change the laws, but if enough of his MPs choose
Speaker 1: to vote with their conscience, the decision could be out
Speaker 1: of his hands. Today, reporter and director of F and
Speaker 1: K Media Caitlin Sorry on the fight over abortion rights
Speaker 1: and how it will affect who leads Queensland. It's Thursday,
Speaker 1: October twenty four Caitlin, Hello, how are you good?
Speaker 2: Afternoon?
Speaker 1: Good so nice to see you. You're in Queensland at
Speaker 1: the moment, in the electorate of Caloundra and the state
Speaker 1: election is just a few days away. So in this
Speaker 1: final stretch, what has it been like? What are you
Speaker 1: seeing and hearing?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm seeing abortion signs popping up quite a
Speaker 2: few different variations, but the ones I saw today were
Speaker 2: a vote for the L and P is a vote
Speaker 2: to make abortion a crime. I saw three of them
Speaker 2: on my way into work today and they've been moving
Speaker 2: around the neighborhood, so I'm assuming some of them being
Speaker 2: pulled out and replaced with different ones. But it is
Speaker 2: interesting because this is a marginal seat. Labor won it
Speaker 2: for the first time in twenty twenty by a margin
Speaker 2: of two point five percent, and it's an electorate where
Speaker 2: there's a lot of young family moving into the area.
Speaker 2: There's a big housing development locally, got a lot of
Speaker 2: people moving up from the south from Victoria, from New
Speaker 2: South Wales because of the beaches. It's not that far
Speaker 2: from Brisbane, and so it's an area where you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of campaign around abortion access might actually have
Speaker 2: some impact.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's talk about the campaign around abortion access.
Speaker 1: It didn't seem like it was a major issue in
Speaker 1: this election until very recently, So tell me about how
Speaker 1: that happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Robbie catter led off a bit of a
Speaker 2: hand grenade. He was asked about his position on abortion
Speaker 2: because he has introduced a private members bill previously earlier
Speaker 2: this year around late term abortions. So he was asked
Speaker 2: about this again and he said that he would work
Speaker 2: to repeal the legalization of abortion. Quote as quick as.
Speaker 3: You like, we will, quick as you like put a
Speaker 3: repeal bill back into the Coinsland Parliament on those abortion laws.
Speaker 2: This isn't something he said he was set out to
Speaker 2: de liberately talk about in this campaign. It was put
Speaker 2: to him, so he answered it, and he's like, I'm
Speaker 2: a straight up guy, you know, I'll answer the questions
Speaker 2: that are sent my way.
Speaker 3: I responded as I always would by saying that if
Speaker 3: a proposition was put to us, or there was an
Speaker 3: opportunity to progress something that aligns with our values where
Speaker 3: I take it, the answer will always be yes. And
Speaker 3: you can cut and pace abortion with vegetation management laws
Speaker 3: or climate tax or whatever you like, we will always.
Speaker 2: But it has really given labor the legs to go.
Speaker 2: What could happen in a new government, particularly when it
Speaker 2: seems pretty likely that we're going to have an L
Speaker 2: and P government.
Speaker 1: Okay, can we pause and talk a little more about
Speaker 1: Robbie Catter here, because I think his father, Bob Catter,
Speaker 1: is the more well known politician. But Bob retired I
Speaker 1: believe not too long ago, and Robbie took over his party.
Speaker 1: So tell me a bit more about this family and
Speaker 1: their role in the Queensland political life.
Speaker 2: Yes, so, Robbie Catter is Bob Katter's son and Bob
Speaker 2: Catter Senior has his influence goes back to the seventies.
Speaker 2: So he was first elected in the seventies. He became
Speaker 2: a minister under Premier Jobilki Peterson, who people will famously know.
Speaker 2: And the Kata Party when they formed in the twenty
Speaker 2: tens were really they're really a North Queensland party. They
Speaker 2: have at least four seats, are expected to retain those
Speaker 2: seats and maybe I can pick up another one. And
Speaker 2: it's a party that really represents, you know, parts of
Speaker 2: North Queensland that don't feel like they're represented by the
Speaker 2: major parties. So they have Christian values. They've talked about
Speaker 2: things like corporate punishment for children and parents having the
Speaker 2: right to do that.
Speaker 3: The matter of the fact is parents have lost their
Speaker 3: rights to discipline the children.
Speaker 4: Some kids need a smack, a kick up the ass
Speaker 4: or ruler.
Speaker 2: So they bring up things that maybe the major parties
Speaker 2: aren't too interested in talking about. But the Kata Party, okay,
Speaker 2: And so while the Catter Party is I suppose a
Speaker 2: minor party, it does sound like it's got a long
Speaker 2: history and it's got significant power.
Speaker 1: But I mean, just how far does that stretch? Why
Speaker 1: did the suggestion that they might introduce a bill to
Speaker 1: repeal abortion, why did that have such a big impact
Speaker 1: on this election campaign?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so earlier this year Robbie Catter introduced a member's
Speaker 2: bill that failed on late term abortions, focusing on the
Speaker 2: human rights of babies born alive after abortion.
Speaker 5: Action speaking, more than thirty babies people are born into
Speaker 5: this world live in Queensland each year as a result
Speaker 5: of late term pregnancy termination procedure, thirty babies. This bill
Speaker 5: to amend the Termination and Pregnancy Act twenty eighteen and
Speaker 5: shrines and legislation the fundamental human rights of all persons
Speaker 5: human babies born.
Speaker 2: Now, this is something that happens very rarely. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of guardrails about how these things are handled. But
Speaker 2: Robbie Catter is really concerned that baby is born and
Speaker 2: that survive the abortion end up in the bin. Now
Speaker 2: that's a claim he's said a few times as recently
Speaker 2: as last week.
Speaker 5: The baby's plan.
Speaker 3: Abortion comes out breathing with a heartbeat.
Speaker 5: I'm probably going to struggle for life, but that they
Speaker 5: can just give us some care and dignity.
Speaker 3: It's a human rights issue.
Speaker 1: It's not an abortion issue.
Speaker 2: To me, so that when I put that to medical professionals,
Speaker 2: they're like, that's really insensitive and that is not something
Speaker 2: that is happening, and it also undermines the professionalism of
Speaker 2: medical professionals in this field too, are doing everything they
Speaker 2: can to work with families. David Christophulei, the leader of
Speaker 2: the L and P, has said it's not part of
Speaker 2: the plant. I'm ruling out any changes to abortion.
Speaker 3: There might be a change.
Speaker 6: It has crossed the line and ruled it out.
Speaker 2: Although he said there's no plan to change abortion in Queensland,
Speaker 2: he has also not ruled out a conscience vote. So
Speaker 2: whether it actually gets traction in the Parliament post this
Speaker 2: election this weekend is kind of up to whether there
Speaker 2: is a conscience vote on the issue, because if Kata's
Speaker 2: party puts in a bill that says we want people
Speaker 2: to be able to vote on their conscience, a conscience
Speaker 2: vote would allow his members to vote however they like
Speaker 2: and we don't know what that would look like. Also,
Speaker 2: what's interesting here is that the L and P broadly
Speaker 2: voted against the legalization of abortion in twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 2: Chris A. Foley and his deputy Dared Lahey were among them.
Speaker 2: Only three members of the L and P voted with Labor.
Speaker 2: So we have this situation where the leader of the
Speaker 2: L and P is saying, look, there'll be no changes,
Speaker 2: you've just got to trust us. But when you look
Speaker 2: at how they're voted previously, they have voted against decriminalizing
Speaker 2: abortion in Queensland. The Late Party have seen this as
Speaker 2: a way to wedge the L ANDP by saying a
Speaker 2: vote for the L and P is a vote for
Speaker 2: criminalizing abortion in Queenslandbody mind.
Speaker 4: I mean this is this is a really important issue.
Speaker 2: I think it shouldn't change. Everyone knows I think it
Speaker 2: shouldn't change.
Speaker 1: The laws will remain the same.
Speaker 5: Or you have a consciencepoke the laws will remain this
Speaker 5: there will do you need no change.
Speaker 2: So it really is a live issue in Queensland now,
Speaker 2: even though this wasn't something we expected from this campaign,
Speaker 2: Suddenly we're all talking about abortion. When this was kind
Speaker 2: of put to bed in twenty eighteen, but now it's
Speaker 2: become a part of this election campaign.
Speaker 1: After the break, how abortion access in Queensland could be
Speaker 1: wound back with or without an abortion bill. So let's
Speaker 1: talk more Caitlin about the pre twenty eighteen scenario and
Speaker 1: the context for this. I mean, how contentious has the
Speaker 1: issue of abortion been in Queensland before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I started reporting on abortion politics in Queensland
Speaker 2: when I was like twenty one years old. So in Queensland,
Speaker 2: the laws were written in eighteen ninety nine. Abortion was
Speaker 2: criminalized in Queensland before Queensland women got the vote in
Speaker 2: nineteen oh five, and those laws kind of stayed in
Speaker 2: place for a very long time. It wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty five that we had a doctor actually charged with
Speaker 2: those laws for performing an abortion and they went to
Speaker 2: trial and he was able to argue that it was
Speaker 2: in the interest of the women's health and that became
Speaker 2: the legal defense upon which all abortion services in Queensland
Speaker 2: were accessed. So basically we were kind of in this
Speaker 2: gray zone until about two thousand and nine where there
Speaker 2: was this weird case where a young couple imported an
Speaker 2: abortion drug from Ukraine and at the time abortion pills
Speaker 2: were able to be accessed by a guy ecologist in Cans,
Speaker 2: Carol and DaCosta, but they went down this other route
Speaker 2: where they got it imported through a throne who was
Speaker 2: flying on a flight to Cans and so they were
Speaker 2: charged under that law and there was kind of this
Speaker 2: question and this tension around like abortion is criminalized in Queensland,
Speaker 2: but it also had this legal defense how covered our
Speaker 2: doctors in Queensland And so things kind of ticked along
Speaker 2: until twenty sixteen when Independent Rob Pine introduced a private
Speaker 2: member's bill seeking to decriminalize abortion and that went to
Speaker 2: the Law Reform Commission and they looked at these eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine laws and spent a year looking at it.
Speaker 2: They had committees, they went around to Queenslanders asking them
Speaker 2: how do they feel about these laws, and really kind
Speaker 2: of brought the public along with them and they did
Speaker 2: a lot of surveys kind of seeing, you know, what
Speaker 2: was the appetite for change in Queensland. And so that
Speaker 2: ended up being a piece of legislation that went to
Speaker 2: the Queensland government and was finally signed in twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: makeing abortion legal. So that's kind of the journey that
Speaker 2: we've been on from eighteen ninety nine to twenty eighteen
Speaker 2: and now in twenty twenty four the whole debate started again.
Speaker 1: Okay, but there is a difference, isn't there between abortion
Speaker 1: being decriminalized and it being a realistic option for women.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to access, particularly in more remote
Speaker 1: or more regional areas, what is that like as it stands?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it is expanding. So the Labor government recently
Speaker 2: passed laws expanding access to abortion services, particularly in regional areas.
Speaker 2: Again that was opposed broadly by the L and P
Speaker 2: and so they've put aside forty one point eight million
Speaker 2: dollars towards the Termination of Pregnancy Action Plan twenty thirty
Speaker 2: two over five years. And what that does is it
Speaker 2: allows qualified nurses and midwives to perform medical termination using
Speaker 2: the MS two step in the early stages of pregnancy.
Speaker 2: So it means that there are more people who can
Speaker 2: give out this medication and work with women who are
Speaker 2: in regional and remote areas who may not be able
Speaker 2: to access a hospital. So in large parts of Queensland
Speaker 2: it's a long way to get to a hospital and
Speaker 2: a surgical abortion is you know, quite a procedure for
Speaker 2: some people. So to have medical access where you can
Speaker 2: just take a pill, do it from home, be supervised
Speaker 2: by a nurse is another way to go. And so
Speaker 2: that is rolling out. And when I spoke to Carolindacosta,
Speaker 2: who was an early part of the MIFA pristone access,
Speaker 2: she was the first doctor in Australia who was granted
Speaker 2: access to be able to give this to women. She
Speaker 2: said that it is coming into the public system, So
Speaker 2: it is becoming part of public healthcare in Queensland. But
Speaker 2: that process is ongoing. It's not it's not a kind
Speaker 2: of snappy fingers and it happens overnight, okay.
Speaker 1: And so throughout this election campaign, David Chris fully he
Speaker 1: has been trying very hard to sell himself as this
Speaker 1: sort of moderate and more contemporary leader and if he wins,
Speaker 1: he will be somewhat of an anomaly. Not many states
Speaker 1: or territories are governed by a liberal party right now.
Speaker 1: So do you think that that signals that he will
Speaker 1: face unique challenges as the leader of the Queensland l
Speaker 1: ANDP and potentially as Premier.
Speaker 2: Yes, So it is an interesting scenario because we haven't
Speaker 2: had an L and P leader in Queensland for a while.
Speaker 2: The last one was Campbell Newman and he was kind
Speaker 2: of a different political beast to Debi Crissa. Fully. Political
Speaker 2: scientists from Griffith Associate Professor Paul Williams kind of says,
Speaker 2: we're in uncharted territory. We don't. We haven't really had
Speaker 2: a situation in Queensland where we've had a progressive leader
Speaker 2: with a party room that is at least three quarters
Speaker 2: Capital C Conservative. But if there's enough of a swing
Speaker 2: towards Chris a Fully and he has a mandate to say, look,
Speaker 2: I was elected, I'm the leader. The political analyst I
Speaker 2: spoke to said that he should have enough power to
Speaker 2: keep the party in line.
Speaker 1: Right. But even if an abortion bill doesn't materialize or
Speaker 1: doesn't get through Parliament, there are other ways out there
Speaker 1: of making it difficult for people to be able to
Speaker 1: access abortion services.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was speaking to the CEO of Children by Choice,
Speaker 2: Jill McKay, and she said there's lots of ways that
Speaker 2: you can make abortion access less accessible that are less
Speaker 2: obvious than going the criminalization of abortion route.
Speaker 4: We are funded. We are Queensland's only government funded all
Speaker 4: options pregnancy counseling service any other program that someone would contact,
Speaker 4: or any other service at they're contacting outside of Queensland Health,
Speaker 4: they will be running into anti choice people.
Speaker 2: So their funding comes from the government. That can be
Speaker 2: reduced over time, which means that you give more space
Speaker 2: to people who may not talk about abortion, access to
Speaker 2: people who are pregnant and wanting counseling. You can also
Speaker 2: reduce the access to publicly accessible abortion in Queensland, so
Speaker 2: you can roll back some of that funding where it's
Speaker 2: going through the public system.
Speaker 4: Perhaps they're you know, the way to take away that
Speaker 4: all choice space is to fund other programs or services
Speaker 4: or highlight them, or also to reduce the access public
Speaker 4: access to abortion in Queensland. So there's many many.
Speaker 6: Other ways to kind look at it.
Speaker 4: And because we don't know we're scared from children by
Speaker 4: choices perspective, we have reached out in.
Speaker 6: That letter that we sent out, it's on public record.
Speaker 6: Please can we meet with you? Can please? Can we
Speaker 6: individually meet with you to talk with you as a
Speaker 6: candidate about what your perspective is on abortion access in
Speaker 6: Queensland And not one of them has taken it up.
Speaker 2: And so this debate shows us that even though public
Speaker 2: opinion is really strong that the majority of people and
Speaker 2: Queensland support abortion access. This debate is far from settled.
Speaker 2: It's an issue that will always get people riled up.
Speaker 2: It's an issue that will always attract attention, and so
Speaker 2: even though there is broad public support, this is something
Speaker 2: that's going to come up again and again and throw
Speaker 2: into question women's right to have control over their body.
Speaker 1: Well, Caitlyn, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Bruce Lammon is permitted to
Speaker 1: continue his appeal against his failed defamation case against Channel ten.
Speaker 1: The Federal Court has granted Laman a stay of the
Speaker 1: two million dollar cost and dismissed Ten's application for Lairman
Speaker 1: to pay two hundred thousand dollars as security for the
Speaker 1: cost of the upcoming appeal. Lamon did not appear in
Speaker 1: court for the hearings, with his lawyer stating his scared
Speaker 1: to attend court after becoming arguably Australia's most hated man,
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump has made an extraordinary claim that the
Speaker 1: UK Labor Party has committed election interference just two weeks
Speaker 1: from the vote on November five, in a written complaint
Speaker 1: which misspells the word Britain. It's claimed that Labour sent
Speaker 1: party members to campaign for Harris in key states. The
Speaker 1: letter references a LinkedIn post from the head of operations
Speaker 1: at UK Labor that claimed one hundred current and former
Speaker 1: staffers were campaigning for Harris. The Guardian reports the volunteers
Speaker 1: were campaigning on their personal time and not in their
Speaker 1: capacity for Labor. I'm Ruby Jones at seven am, will
Speaker 1: be back tomorrow.