No MP can change – or even talk about changing – Queensland’s abortion laws for the next four years.
As the Premier himself said, this has nothing to do with a woman’s right to choose.
Rather, as the Premier explained, the gag was in answer to Labor’s election ’scare campaign’ that a change was what the LNP secretly wanted.
“I said from Day One it was not part of our plan,” the Premier told parliament.
“I said there would be no changes.”
“Labor knew this and, despite that, the social media tsunami, the grubby phone calls continued unabated.”
As the Premier’s barely contained anger betrayed, this is not about abortion.
It’s politics.
The scare worked.
The first votes counted on election night are the ones cast that day and early counting showed Labor in with a chance so real that then-Premier Miles refused to concede.
This is attributed to doubts about the LNP and abortion raised late in the campaign when cross-bencher Robbie Katter pledged a private members’ bill changing the legislation.
Instead of ruling out any support for Katter’s bill, Crisafulli repeated a vague ‘not part of our plan’ response that he stuck to for days. He wasn’t helped when a recording emerged of a pro-life LNP candidate saying she supported a change but had to keep quiet until after the election.
People who left their vote to election day swung to Labor.
If not for the huge number of pre-poll votes Crisafulli might still be Opposition Leader.
The Premier knows that in any discussion about abortion, he loses.
So he has ended any discussion – including from his own loud and proud pro-life party room.
And that’s why his move has been described as everything from ‘highly unusual’ to ‘the death of democracy in Queensland.’
Even the most disengaged political observer would know that for democracy to function, politicians and the parliament should be free to raise any issue at any time.
To have a Premier decide what issues can or cannot be raised is both a slippery slope and the thin of the wedge.
Not even Joh was as brazen.
As Labor argues, parliament will be prevented from discussing any changes to regulation resulting from new medications for women.
And there is the fear that, having made this order, what other debates could be silenced?
The Borbidge/Sheldon Review into the LNP’s 2015 election loss nominated arrogance and hubris as reasons for the voters abandoning the party and its huge majority after just one term.
Having sacked and stacked parliamentary committees, interfered in the appointment of the State’s most senior judge, Estimates Hearings and the functions of the head off the Crime and Corruption Watchdog, the review also cited a lack of respect for the State’s institutions.
David Crisafulli, who was part of that government, has shown he is not above interfering in the most basic functions of the parliament and democracy.
In fact, he rushed to do it.
Just like cricket fans, Queensland voters have shown the spirit of the game is more important than the result.
The government expects child criminals to fear severe consequences.
The Premier would do well to consider them too.
