Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens support a woman's right to choose what happens to her own body. Abortion has been around since women have been bearing children. Women have been dealing with unwanted pregnancies since time immemorial, especially those with the financial means to pay for safe abortions. The Greens advocate for free, legal and safe abortions in public hospitals because we want to make sure that all women, regardless of their financial means, don't die because of unsanitary and unsafe terminations. This is especially important for women in rural and regional locations.

In the 1970s, Australia brought in universal health care in the form of Medicare, yet all of these years later access to health care, reproductive care, is still based on your postcard and, sadly, your bank balance. We're in the 21st century now and we need our laws to live up to our aspirations for the future. We want to see a future where the state guarantees the rights for all people, where society respects the rights of women and where religious ethics stay well away from the lives of people who do not subscribe to any faith—or as our former senator for the Greens Kerry Nettle once famously said to the then member for Warringah Tony Abbott, 'Get your rosaries off my ovaries.'

Queensland, sadly, has the worst laws on abortion—the most restrictive. Abortion is considered a crime in my home state of Queensland and it's governed by criminal laws that were drafted in 1899. That is somewhat out of date. Case law has established that abortions are generally regarded as lawful if it prevents serious danger to the woman's physical or mental health, but it is still on our criminal law books. The urgent need to clean the law books from unfair, sexist legislation that criminalises women for deciding what is best for their body and themselves is a matter of public importance, and I'm proud that we're debating it in this chamber today. We are certainly in the majority on this one. A poll of 1,200 Queenslanders taken in February 2017 by Fair Agenda found that 82 per cent of people agree that it should be legal for a woman to terminate her pregnancy—every child wanted.

Over the course of the 21st century, most Australian states and territories have re-examined and reformed their laws to varying degrees, starting with South Australia in 1969, leaving Queensland, as I said, with the most restrictive abortion laws in the whole country. Queensland's abortion laws date back to two centuries ago, but attitudes about women's bodies have moved on, and it's time our laws got on with the times too. It's a matter of public importance that, in my home state of Queensland, rape and incest are not even considered grounds for lawful abortion unless a woman's physical or mental health is concerned.

Every Australian state that has initiated legislation to reform sexual and reproductive rights has ended up passing legislation to legalise abortion to one degree or another. This shows that there is demand and support from the community for fairer access to this simple medical procedure that medical professionals say is safer than a colonoscopy.

Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT have removed abortion from their crimes acts. In the ACT abortion is legal as long as it's provided by a medical doctor, with all abortion laws fully repealed in 2000. In Victoria, abortion is legal for up to 24 weeks with the woman's consent and after 24 weeks with the additional consent of two doctors under decriminalisation legislation that was introduced 10 years ago. In Tasmania, a decriminalisation bill passed in 2013, which made abortion legal on request for up to 16 weeks and, after that, with the approval of two doctors. Also in Tasmania are those fantastic exclusion zones to prevent protesters outside abortion clinics on a matter that is a medical privacy issue.

Women are 51 per cent of the world's population. Despite much progress, our society still has gendered expectations about what form people's lives should take. Women are expected to be nurturing mothers, yet they're punished in the workplace for their decision to pursue maternity or they're criminalised when they make decisions about what's best for their lives, their bodies or their families, such as a decision not to carry a pregnancy to term. As has been said in this place previously, no woman takes a decision to have an abortion lightly. If you are against abortion, then don't have an abortion and kindly refrain from interfering with other women's choices.

On the matter of access, Queensland Health estimates that only one per cent of pregnancy terminations performed in Queensland are provided in public health facilities. The rest are provided through private clinics, day surgeries and a small number of GPs. These services are of high quality and are offered by experienced clinicians, but they have out-of-pocket costs which can make access very difficult for some women. The cost can be anywhere from $250 to $4,000, depending on a woman's gestation and location. In addition to the high cost barriers for Queensland women, women in rural and remote areas often face long travel distance to get to an abortion provider. Although medical abortion is now available through some GPs, there is no public list of certified prescribers, so finding a general practice that offers medical abortion can be very difficult.

I urge the government to use the COAG meetings that are coming up in just a few weeks time to advocate for free, safe and legal abortions accessible in public hospitals so that no woman is disadvantaged because she lives in a rural or regional part of the country. I would like to place on record my immense pride for the work that's been done by Dr—now Senator—Mehreen Faruqi in the New South Wales parliament on this issue; by Shane Rattenbury, our Greens member of the ACT parliament; and our now first elected member in Queensland state parliament, Michael Berkman, for the seat of Maiwar.

We would also like to see reform so that there is transparency in advertising services so that Commonwealth funding is strictly spent on unbiased counselling. In some Australian states, women are forced to undergo counselling before they can terminate a pregnancy. Of course we support all medical procedures coming with informed consent, but each woman is the best and most knowledgeable expert about her own life, including the decision on whether she needs additional counselling. Counselling should be made available to all who request it but should not be imposed on anyone who prefers to keep their own counsel. Likewise, it should not be a smokescreen for pushing an agenda that is not one that simply places the woman's needs and rights at the forefront.

The only way to reduce abortion is to invest in sex education to prevent unwanted pregnancies and to urgently address the epidemic of rape that threatens people in their homes, in their university campuses, in parks and on the streets at night. Without us, there is no production and there is no reproduction, and I urge the Senate to work to protect the rights of all people to safe, free and legal abortion in all Australian jurisdictions. And I'd like to flag that this is an issue that I feel particularly personally strongly about. How dare the state tell us what we can do with our own bodies? I would urge every woman in this place—indeed, every person in this place—to reflect on the state of mind of women. We are perfectly able to make our own decisions. We should have the legal right to make our own decisions about our own bodies. It is repulsive to me that the state can still dictate what we can and cannot do with our own bodies in this day and age, particularly in Queensland, which is governed by laws drafted in 1899. You can bet there was not a single woman in the parliament when those laws were passed.

It is long past time that we reform these laws. I'm so pleased to see progress has been made in many state parliaments around the country. Queensland has been lagging behind, despite the fact that we have a Labor administration who say that they are sympathetic to this issue but have still done nothing for decades. I welcome that there are moves afoot now to address this issue. I note that our Greens bill before the Queensland parliament would help. It certainly would decriminalise abortion and would help address those access issues and those issues of unbiased counselling.

I will be continuing to talk about this issue in this place because we have a strong role here in the federal parliament to ensure access to legal, safe and free health care for women, and that is an important role that the federal Senate, I think, should be playing. I would urge people who have strong religious views on this issue to hold those views themselves but to not impose those on others. I look forward to the rest of the debate. I'd like to thank the contributors to the debate for the modicum of civility that has occurred; it's not always the case. But I would urge people to listen to the views of women and to empower us to make our own decisions about our own bodies.