The Greens will seek to split the Coalition on the politically fraught issue of abortion by asking the Senate to vote to jettison a pro-life bill championed by two Coalition senators. Source: The Guardian.
Greens Senator Larissa Waters advised the Senate yesterday that she would move a motion on November 26 seeking to have the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill discharged.
The move came after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told Coalition MPs in a party room address two weeks ago that they should avoid public debate about abortion, controversy over which had likely cost the Liberal National party seats at the Queensland state election in October.
The private senators’ bill is co-sponsored by the Queensland National Matt Canavan and South Australian Liberal Alex Antic, and has been on the Senate notice paper for two years.
It aims to force medical practitioners to save the life of a child born alive after a pregnancy termination.
By seeking to have the Senate formally discharge the Canavan-Antic bill – citing Mr Dutton’s wish that debate not be reopened ahead of a federal election – the Greens were pushing the pair and colleagues who supported them to either back their leader and abandon the bill, or defy him.
The Albanese Government has avoided reopening public debate on the ever-sensitive issue as it, too, has differing views in its ranks on what is generally regarded in politics as a matter of conscience.
To avoid exposing division on its own side, the Government had opted to leave the bill where it lay. But with this move, the Greens stood to provoke both major parties.
United Australia party senator Ralph Babet, who is staunchly opposed to abortion, used a motion in the Senate in August to draw attention to the dormant bill and force a debate on the issues it raised.
His motion stated “the need for the Senate to recognise” that Australia’s health system was enabling inhumane deaths through abortion and that “babies born alive as a result of a failed abortion deserve care”.
His motion went to a vote, with 15 Liberal and Nationals senators – including Senator Canavan – plus the two from One Nation supporting it. With 32 against, it was defeated.
FULL STORY
Greens to ask Senate to vote to jettison anti-abortion bill in bid to split Coalition on issue (By Karen Middleton, The Guardian)
