The politics of abortion

When it comes to abortion and politics, action matters.

So does honesty.

And collectively, the Victorian Liberal Party has shown that it lacks any will to act on abortion and that it is completely duplicitous in its approach. These facts simply cannot be ignored, notwithstanding the efforts of one or two very brave Liberal politicians, such as Bernie Finn.

That's why this week's report that Family First will now look at withholding preferences from the Victorian Liberal Party makes perfect sense and is one that I applaud.

So let's look at the Liberal Party's actions.

First up, when it comes to action, it doesn't matter what the Liberal Party says about abortion while it is in opposition. All that matters is what it does when it is in power.

And on this score there are only two numbers that count: 0 and 508.

The first number represents exactly what the Liberals have done to wind back these laws: nothing. There has been complete and utter inaction. In fact, there is a good case to argue that the Labor backbencher, Christine Campbell, has done more to highlight the problems of these laws than the actual Liberals running the state over the last four years.

The second number is even worse. It signifies the difference between the number of days that Labor administered, funded, supported, protected and oversaw these evil abortion laws and the number of days that the Liberals have.

Today that number stands at 508.

That's 508 days more than Labor that the Liberal government thinks it is fine and dandy to administer laws that allow abortion up until the day of birth. And the only thing about to change on this front is the number. Tomorrow it will tick over to 509.

That means that the Liberals actually have a far worse track record administering abortion in Victoria than the Labor Party.