VICTORIA – ‘Abortion will always be part of my journey’: Georgie Purcell’s message to anti-choicers
“I owe an explanation on these decisions to precisely nobody, but it seems nothing is off limits to anti-choicers.”
In the days following her announcement that she is pregnant, Victorian MP Georgie Purcell was bombarded with online vitriol from anti-choice activists who criticised her for the abortions she had in the past.
“Many will know that this isn’t my first pregnancy, but it is the first that I have decided to proceed with.”
Speaking in the Victorian parliament on Thursday, Purcell said abortion would always be part of her journey into motherhood and she doesn’t shy away from that. “When I made this deeply personal announcement, I spoke of how this pregnancy has only solidified my belief in reproductive choice,” she told parliament.
To anti-abortion critics, she said: “…Being in public life does not make me public property. My body and the choices I have made with it in the past are not a possession for you to advance your harmful, shameful and dangerous political agendas. So to those anti-choice, and frankly anti-women activists: thank you for reminding me that I will never stop using my platform to ensure that my daughter grows up in the state where she will always have a right to choose.”
SOURCE: Women’s Agenda, by Madeline Hislop, 31 July 2025.
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QUEENSLAND – Why the courts stepped in when a 12-year-old wanted an abortion
Earlier this year, the Queensland Supreme Court gave permission for a hospital to perform a surgical abortion on a 12-year-old girl who was nine weeks pregnant.
The girl, known as “E”, wanted an abortion, and her mother consented. However, the court was still required to assess whether a termination was in the child’s best interests.
According to Australian law, children are empowered to make their own decisions about the healthcare they receive – regardless of parental consent – so long as they fully understand what is being done.
Finding out whether the child is “competent”, according to this very long article, seems to take an endless amount of time. It does not question whether the parents and the members of the court(s) are competent, however. But it does ask: Why the Supreme Court?
SOURCE: RNZ, by Will Murray, ABC. 5 August 2025.
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NEW SOUTH WALES – Extra! A convicted rapist is still an MP. What does it take to be expelled from New South Wales Parliament?
Being convicted of rape and indecent assault may not be enough, given the showdown emerging as NSW Independent MP Gareth Ward sits in a Cessnock prison awaiting sentencing while continuing to remain the member for Kiama and receive his MP salary.
Last month, Ward was found guilty of raping a political staffer in 2015 following an event at parliament, and of indecently assaulting a then 18-year-old man three times in 2013. Both victims were assaulted at Ward’s home; they had met him while building their early careers in politics.
Ward has been the member for Kiama since 2011 and has remained a member in the weeks since his conviction and will now pursue a legal fight, from prison, to retain the position.
An MP needs to be convicted of a crime punishable by five years or more in prison for their seat to be declared vacant, under the NSW Constitution Act. The act describes conviction as meaning taking in “the end of the appeals process”, should the individual convicted choose to appeal. Ward is choosing to appeal. And even once the appeals process is exhausted, he would still need to receive a sentence of more than five years to be expelled, according to the Act.
Clearly, the parliamentary rules need to change. In the meantime, it’s up to the current parliament — who should now be dealing with other issues — to try and remove a convicted rapist from his chair. The fact there has been no successful expulsion from the NSW Parliament since 1917 should say it all….[Note that the article does not even comment that it took 12 years to convict him.]
SOURCE: Women’s Agenda, by Angela Priestley, 6 August 2025.