A high-profile Australian One Nation politician has openly acknowledged that his anti-abortion position does not align with the majority public opinion in the country, following his public appearance at an anti-abortion gathering in Sydney last week.
Barnaby Joyce, the federal MP for New England, was among attendees at the Sydney Life Rally on Tuesday evening. The event was organized to build public support for a private member’s bill that will be debated this week in the New South Wales (NSW) state parliament, which aims to criminalize abortions performed exclusively for the purpose of sex selection.
Notably, sex-selective abortion is already prohibited under existing NSW Health policy, and the NSW parliament formally rejected restrictions on abortion access in 2019, when a cross-party majority voted to decriminalize the procedure across the state. In a social media statement shared after the rally, Joyce argued that sex selection can never be a justified reason for terminating a pregnancy, adding that clear legislative boundaries are necessary in this debate. “This law in NSW must be passed or otherwise we all accept that sex selection is appropriate,” his post read.
In a heated interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Wednesday, Joyce reaffirmed his self-identification as pro-life, and conceded when prompted that this position is not held by most Australians. “I would agree to that,” he stated. “I don’t go out to engage in this debate to become popular. If I wanted to be, I’d stay away from it. I engage with it because I believe it is the correct thing to do and I feel I would be an unsubstantial person if I start stepping away from my beliefs.” When asked about widespread public disagreement with his views, Joyce noted that dissent against his positions is not a new occurrence, and repeatedly clarified that he is not advocating for a full nationwide ban on abortion.
Citing a 2023 Edith Cowan University analysis of national birth data collected between 1994 and 2015, Joyce claimed that only around 13 to 14 out of 15,000 studied abortions were explicitly self-reported as being for sex selection. Still, he argued that even one case of sex-selective abortion is unacceptable. Joyce also pushed back against criticism of a line in his social media post that critics interpreted as implying that girls are inherently less valuable than boys, explaining the comment was intended as rhetorical, and distorted by political opponents who refuse to engage with his argument in good faith.
The Tuesday rally also drew prominent anti-abortion voice Dr Joanna Howe, an academic at the University of Adelaide who last year launched a threat of a grassroots campaign against former NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman over his support for legislation to expand abortion access in the state. At that time, NSW Premier Chris Minns condemned Howe’s activism as “American-style misinformation”.
The current bill before parliament was put forward by Libertarian Member of the Legislative Council (MLC) John Ruddock. If enacted, it would impose penalties of up to AU$22,000 in fines or five years of prison for anyone convicted of performing or facilitating a sex-selective abortion. While the bill will be introduced for debate this week, a formal vote on the legislation is not scheduled for some time, and political analysts widely expect it to fail, with neither the ruling Labor Party nor the left-wing Greens expected to support the measure.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday alongside an announcement expanding the NSW Labor government’s program allowing pharmacists to prescribe and dispense contraceptive pills, Premier Minns reiterated that sex-selective abortion is already illegal in NSW, and official demographic data shows no evidence of systemic sex selection termination occurring in the state. “I’ve looked at the data. The demographic data does not indicate that there is sex selection terminations taking place in NSW and we know that because we see in minute detail the number of people and pregnancies that are born each and every year,” Minns said. He added that while protesters have a legal right to gather and express their views, he would not support the bill even if it advanced to a vote in the NSW Legislative Assembly.