Queensland parliament blocks changes to abortion law

The Queensland parliament has blocked changes to abortion laws for the next four years -- in what's been described as an unprecedented move.

Transcript

00:00Well this motion has been labelled as a political gag and it really did come out of left field

00:07here at State Parliament yesterday when the Premier David Christopher Lee announced that

00:11there would be a vote on this snap motion.

00:14Now what the motion means is that over this parliamentary term, so the next four years,

00:19abortion legislation in the state will be protected.

00:23It means that no members will be able to amend the Act, nor will they be able to express

00:27any of their personal views on the matter, and effectively debate over the issue will

00:32also be silenced.

00:34It was a topic that dominated so much of Queensland's state election over the October month, particularly

00:39in the last few weeks, and the Labor Party was even accused of weaponising the abortion

00:44legislation against the Liberal National Party and running a scare campaign.

00:48Now it was initially sparked by the Catter's Australian Party when they announced that

00:52they would be looking to introduce repeal bills to the legislation once the state election

00:58was over, and at the time the Premier David Christopher Lee was heavily questioned by

01:02journalists as to what his stance was on the matter.

01:05He said that those laws would not be changing under his government, but he didn't specify

01:10how exactly that would be happening, so this motion yesterday is being considered as sort

01:15of the answer to all those questions.

01:18But only one scare campaign was so personal, vitriolic and based in mistruths that it has

01:26exposed once and for all why Queenslanders said no.

01:32Said no to a US-style campaign, said no to the scare and innuendo, and said no to a very

01:38bad Labor government.

01:39Now as you can hear, there were fiery exchanges yesterday in State Parliament over this motion

01:45from both sides of politics, with the State's opposition arguing that this motion would

01:50effectively prevent any sort of amendments to women's reproductive rights, which they

01:55say is very concerning.

01:57No doubt while the matter might be silenced inside State Parliament, there is still going

02:01to be lots of repercussions outside of the Parliament House.

02:05Certainly with lots on the agenda for this week in Queensland Parliament, we are also

02:10expecting debate to resume over the government's youth crime laws, which are going to continue

02:15later today.