Shutting down debate on abortion is a concern for us all

Late lst year the new LNP Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, successfully moved a motion in parliament that there be “no bill or amendment” and “no motion or amendment” over the term of the government to the Labor inherited liberal Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018 that controls abortion.

This means that the Queensland parliament cannot discuss, ask questions, make representations, draft amendments or even accept citizens’ petitions expressing concerns about its own legislation on abortion.

Crisafulli’s actions are unprecedented in executive government suppression of parliamentary debate across not only in Queensland’s much derided unicameral parliamentary system even under the premiership of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, but across most other Westminster systems.   

The abortion issue had arisen during the recent state election as the outgoing Labor Party sought, with some success, to retain their Brisbane inner suburban seats by campaigning that an LNP government would reverse current laws and make it harder to access abortion.

Although Crisafulli had firmly ruled out any changes to abortion laws during and since the election, he argues this suppression order was necessary because Labor’s “grubby … disgraceful scare campaign” had created “victims” among “many young women and first-time voters” fearful of future changes. The order seeks to allay these fears more resolutely. 

The Labor opposition suggested the ban was more so Crisafulli could keep his LNP members in line given some had expressed concern with the current laws. It would also prevent the conservative Katter Australian Party submitting private members’ bills to amend the legislation causing division within LNP ranks as occurred during the election campaign.

The issue is not whether you agree or disagree with the current abortion laws, but whether executive government should be able to terminate all discussion and debate about any issue, including one as important as this.

Certainly, all governments in Westminster systems use their numbers to guillotine legislation and to limit debates so legislation can be quickly passed. We saw that recently when the Albanese government passed a raft of bills through the Senate with little debate. The Morrison government did the same to pass legislation quickly during the pandemic. 

But that is quite different from executive government completely suppressing any discussion about a major policy issue as Crisafulli has now done. 

It is It is rejection of the 1989 Fitzgerald commission’s findings which highlighted how Queensland’s executive control of parliament was an underlying cause of corruption. 

It is a contradiction of Queensland Parliament’s own website which states that “members of parliament enjoy a unique privilege of freedom of speech, derived from Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688, Article 9”. 

It ignores that parliament does not exist merely for the convenience of executive government but is expected to provide a forum to hold ministers to account, promote debate, hear alternative policies and to air citizens’ grievances whatever they may be.