Rusty 🇦🇺

Resurrecting this dead issue to activate women against the right at this existential moment in the immigration fight needs to be shut down. Recent polling has One Nation around 31% of the primary vote with immigration being the single biggest reason voters are backing them. That’s where the public’s attention is and that’s where the momentum is coming from. Immigration restriction exists under a social license, allowing unpopular or poorly thought-through policies has previously destroyed the right in Australia. Hanson’s EasyTax proposal in the 1998 federal election ruined One Nation electorally at a time when immigration was equally as salient a concern as today. It is entirely plausible we see a repeat of this with abortion. Abortion is a low-salience issue. Australians don’t rank it among their top political concerns, and it is nowhere near the vote mover that immigration has become. A February 2026 Redbridge poll for The Australia Institute (N=2,010) found 62% support access to abortion services, with another 25% supporting it in limited circumstances. Only 8% oppose it outright. Even among One Nation voters themselves, a substantial majority support access in at least some circumstances. Even if your concern is solely with sex-selective abortion, it has been empirically demonstrated that certain migrant communities (particularly from India and China) exhibit notably higher rates of early induced abortion, including patterns consistent with sex-selective practices that produce skewed sex ratios at birth far above the natural level. Australian-born women show lower rates. But regardless of the nuance of your preferred ban, attempts to legislate in this area walks a tightrope. The distinction between opposing sex-selective abortion and restricting abortion rights more broadly is unlikely to survive media coverage or partisan campaigning. Opponents will almost certainly present it as an attack on women’s bodily autonomy, regardless of the narrower intent and the electoral apocalypse will ensue. The left can no longer rely on accusations of racism to halt growing opposition to mass immigration. Instead, it is attempting to recast the right as anti-women, sexist and anti-abortion. That is particularly risky when women have been moving towards One Nation in significant numbers, and in some polls more than men. Australia has largely avoided the political gender divide seen elsewhere. Why hand opponents a wedge issue when the public is already delivering a mandate on immigration? The opportunity to secure meaningful change on immigration, demographics and our existential problem is rare and may not come again. Turning a low-priority social issue into a central political battle risks everything by energising opponents and distracting from the issue that created the momentum in the first place. Keep the focus on immigration. Don’t squander momentum when it is finally translating into political leverage. Have your vote of conscience as Labor and Liberals have done but don’t risk it as National platform or an artificial right wing position.