Why reawakened abortion debate won’t help the Liberals or Labor

June 9, 2026 — 1:30pm

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Barnaby Joyce — lately of the Coalition cabinet, now of One Nation — last week addressed an anti-abortion rally organised by activist Joanna Howe in support of a bill to wind back abortion access in NSW. The former NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman has called Howe’s campaign the “Americanisation” of politics. He is right that something is being imported, but wrong to think it will help either major party.

The superficial reading writes itself. A populist party turns pro-life; women are flocking to it — first-preference support up from 9 to 28 per cent in under a year, with Pauline Hanson now outpolling the prime minister among women — so abortion must be part of the draw, right? The data says otherwise.

Asked why they moved, they answer much as men do: the cost of living and contempt for the major parties and the sense that no one in Canberra is listening.

We do not have to guess whether an abortion campaign can deliver the female vote because the United States has run the experiment. Twice the Democrats believed a galvanising women’s cause would hand them women: a woman atop the ticket in 2016, and the post-Roe election of 2024. Both times the predicted revolt failed to arrive.........

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