Just a week after the victory of the Liberal National Party in the Queensland state election, hundreds rallied in Brisbane city in defence of abortion rights. Homemade signs read “LNP = Anti-choice”, “This is not America” and “Hands off my body, hands off my rights!”. The 500-strong crowd heard speeches and then marched around the city. 
Abortion returned as an issue in Queensland after the far-right Katter Australia Party leader, Robbie Katter, pledged to move a private members’ bill to repeal abortion laws during the election campaign. Despite the Liberal National Party leader, David Crisafulli, insisting that there would be no change to the laws if his party were to be elected, he refused to provide details about how this would be achieved, despite being asked more than 132 times. 
There is good reason to be concerned. Abortion was only fully decriminalised in Queensland in 2018. At the time, all but three Liberal National MPs voted against decriminalisation, including Crisafulli himself. Crisafulli and sections of the LNP leadership may have wanted to pragmatically smother the issue for electoral reasons during the campaign, but their MPs and party cadre are highly motivated by religious bigotry. They may well decide to make a stand about the issue, regardless of electoral expediency. 
While Queensland Labor has attacked Crisafulli for refusing to guarantee abortion rights, at the same time the party capitulates to bigots within its own ranks with the provision of conscience voting, and in government has refused to invest the necessary funds in healthcare to make abortion accessible throughout the state. 
As it stands, there are only two clinics that provide surgical abortions in Brisbane. Most public hospitals do not offer abortion access, disproportionately disadvantaging women in regional or rural areas who are forced to travel hours to seek an abortion. Because of this, speakers at the rally emphasised that it is not enough for abortion to be legal, it must also be free and accessible. 
Protest also matters. When the only abortion clinic in Rockhampton was closed in 2021, community activists protested for over a year for access to be reinstated to the regional city. Under pressure, the Labor state government announced that the procedure would be provided from then on at the local public hospital. 
With abortion activists facing a hostile state government, this is an important lesson in resistance and how to defend hard-won rights.

Ella Gutteridge

Hundreds rally for abortion rights in Brisbane

Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has approved gas exploration in the fragile Lake Eyre basin, which is home to the last large free-flowing desert river system in the world. 
Scientists say that gas infrastructure would interrupt the flow of water during floods, starving the river channels and the landscape of the water that periodically turns the arid landscape into lush green valleys. Palaszczuk has granted exploration rights to more than 800,000 hectares of rivers and floodplains around the basin, <a href="https://www.lockthegate.org.au/10_000_australians_sign_petition_calling_on_premier_palaszczuk_to_ban_new_gas_in_lake_eyre_basin">according to an estimate by environmental campaign group Lock the Gate</a>.
Adding insult to injury, federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has approved the expansion of the Lake Vernon coal mine in the Bowen basin. On top of that, <a href="https://michaelwest.com.au/santos-wins-fracking-approval-for-towrie-gas-development-from-environment-minister-tanya-plibersek/">as reported by Callum Foote from Michael West Media</a>, Plibersek on 20 February announced that her department had granted Santos, an oil and gas exploration company, approval to develop a 116-well coal seam gas project in the Surat basin.
Lock the Gate, an alliance of farmers, traditional owners and conservationists, has been campaigning against fracking near Queensland’s outback rivers for years. In the last three state election campaigns, the Labor Party promised to protect the floodplains of the Channel Country within the Lake Eyre basin—contrasting itself to the Liberal National Party opposition, which tore up protections for the area when it was last in government. 
But instead of re-establishing protections contained in the initial Wild Rivers Act, which offered some defence for the wetlands in the Lake Eyre basin, the state government only founded a stakeholder advisory group. The concerns of stakeholders such as those involved in Lock the Gate have been promptly ignored.
Undeterred, activists held a protest to present their petition of more than 10,000 signatures to the Queensland parliament on 22 February. “While the Palaszczuk government dawdles, the Resources Department is waving through exploration applications from gas companies covering some of the most precious parts of the Lake Eyre Basin”, Lock the Gate Alliance Queensland coordinator Ellie Smith <a href="https://www.lockthegate.org.au/10_000_australians_sign_petition_calling_on_premier_palaszczuk_to_ban_new_gas_in_lake_eyre_basin">said in a media release</a>. 
“The further these applications progress, the harder it will be for the government to claw them back. Queenslanders need decisive action now. We can’t wait another election cycle for more hollow promises”, she continued.
Climate activists will have to keep up the fight against not only the behemoths of the coal industry, but also the powerful natural gas surveyors who market themselves as a green alternative, despite their destruction of the landscapes they occupy. 
And it’s clear that, despite their environmentalist rhetoric, the state and federal Labor governments are lining up to put the commercial interests of the oil, coal and gas companies ahead of the environment.

Hundreds rally for abortion rights in Brisbane

Labor approves more coal and gas expansion in Queensland

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