Fraser Anning (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes with concern that the socialist-left Queensland Government has passed a bill to legalise late-term abortion, allowing for termination long after a developing child would be able to be born and live to adulthood; and

(b) condemns the Queensland Government for its new abortion laws, and calls on the Liberal­-National Party Opposition to commit to repeal them when elected to office.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As this motion involves a matter of conscience, in line with longstanding practice, government senators are free to vote in accordance with their own conscience on matters relating to this motion.

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So, here we go again. As a male, I find it offensive—abhorrent, even—to sit in this chamber and have to listen to Senator Anning's disgusting diatribes. It's hard to imagine how deleterious it must be for female senators. It was awful to sit with my female staff at the last sitting—going through the reds, as we say—and to read Senator Anning's claims about abortion being, in his words as then circulated, 'state sanctioned murder and Queensland's new child-killing laws'. He's since cleaned up the wording in his new motion. But I just want to register my disgust that a male senator would deliberately use language that is hurtful to all Australian women who've had to make painful decisions about terminating a pregnancy.

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

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

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

There are people, like Senator Anning and Senator O'Sullivan, who are so concerned with policing what women can do with their bodies that they're happy to trot out the old lie about late-term abortions. It is clear that if these senators actually cared about children they'd spend their time in the Senate talking about the plight of children locked up in offshore detention, who are self-harming as a result of the conditions they're being kept in by this government. They'd be calling for a rise in the minimum wage and more support for families who are struggling to make ends meet, because right now there are 739,000 Australian children living in poverty. These are the children those senators should be worried about. They would also be calling for this government to finally take action against the very real national security crisis of violence against women. The most dangerous place for a woman and her children to be is in her own home because she is most likely to be killed or injured by someone she knows, yet all we hear is about how women need to be further controlled when it comes to their bodies.

Fraser Anning (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Fraser Anning (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to clarify for Senator Hinch and Senator Waters regarding murder: section 313 of the Criminal Code Act 1899 formally contained two offences in relation to killing an unborn child. It specified:

(1) Any person who, when a female is about to be delivered of a child, prevents the child from being born alive by any act or omission of such a nature that, if the child had been born alive and had then died, the person would be deemed to have unlawfully killed the child, is guilty of a crime, and is liable to imprisonment for life.

(2) Any person who unlawfully assaults a female pregnant with a child and destroys the life of, or does grievous bodily harm to, or transmits a serious disease to, the child before its birth, commits a crime.

However, under the Palaszczuk government Termination of Pregnancy Act, section 313 of the Criminal Code Act was amended by inserting the new subsection section 313(1A)— (Time expired)

Question negatived.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask senators to reflect on that hour and a half for when we come back tomorrow not only in terms of what they say but also in terms of what they might counsel their colleagues to say.