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The Katter party’s latest bid to force abortion back to parliamentary debate through a nuanced tweak to healthcare laws will be comfortably defeated, but serves as another test to Premier David Crisafulli’s control of conservative backbenchers.
Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter will move a disallowance motion in parliament on Tuesday, with hopes of preventing an update to the state’s Medicines and Poisons Act enabling a segment of nurses and midwives to prescribe and administer abortion medication, including MS-2 Step.
The section of the act targeted by the Katter’s does not specifically mention abortion medication, but gives effect to new versions of extended practice authorities (EPAs) for healthcare workers.
The five updated EPAs, tabled in February, include provisions for the administration of a range of medicines, including vaccines and naxolene, used to treat opioid overdose, and allows practitioners to insert or remove contraceptive devices such as an IUD.
Katter’s disallowance motion would void all medicines and actions included under the updated EPAs, not just termination medicine.
Children By Choice chief executive Anjulee Singh said while the disallowance motion is obscure, she was not surprised to see conservative politicians find ways to bring access to abortion to the table.
“That in and of itself is our concern because it is the sort of insidious, incremental attack on access,” Singh said.
“There was an attempt there, I think, to dig out the regulation and do this quietly.
“That’s the bit that’s upsetting, that it was just put on the agenda, and unless people were really watching, it could have just been allowed to be debated.”
MS-2 Step is the combination of two medicines – mifepristone and misoprostol – and is used to medically terminate a pregnancy up to nine weeks after a menstrual period.
Singh said Katter’s disallowance motion is most harmful to women in regional and remote communities, who rely on a smaller pool of healthcare professionals being able to prescribe and administer such medications.
“If there is a delay because nurses and midwives are no longer allowed to prescribe [medicine] it can then mean later gestation for pregnant people accessing termination, which means further complications,” she said.
“And to the point of the right and what they are peddling, this will mean those later gestations and more of that controversy from there perspective.”
Opposition spokesperson for women Shannon Fentiman said the Katter party’s latest attempt to force the abortion debate back into parliament “is a dangerous pathway for conservative politicians to wind back access to abortion, one step at a time”.
“This vote will be a test of whether David Crisafulli and his LNP MPs support a woman’s right to choose and support nurses and midwives prescribing medical abortions,” she said.
The Katter’s disallowance motion comes just months after LNP MP Nigel Dalton sensationally crossed the floor in February, defying the party room, to vote with the Katter party on a motion to reverse Crisafulli’s gag on any bills or debate on abortion laws, made after his election win in 2024.
While the motion was ultimately unsuccessful, it reignited questions over Crisafulli’s control of his party, particularly its far-right factions, and whether abortion reform will remain gagged during his first term as promised.
Dalton and other conservative backbenchers were contacted for comment and to discuss their positions on the upcoming motion.
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