Greens to ask Senate to vote on anti-abortion bill in bid to split Coalition on issue

Senator Larissa Waters plans to move motion to vote to discharge abortion bill sponsored by Matt Canavan and Alex Antic

The Greens will seek to split the Coalition on the politically fraught issue of abortion by asking the Senate to vote to jettison an anti-abortion bill championed by two Coalition senators.

Greens senator Larissa Waters advised the Senate on Tuesday evening that she would move a motion on 26 November seeking to have the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill discharged.

The move came after the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, told Coalition MPs in a party room address two weeks ago that they should avoid public debate about abortion, controversy over which had likely cost the Liberal National Party seats at the October Queensland state election.

The private senators’ bill is co-sponsored by Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan and South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic, and has been on the Senate notice paper for two years.

It aims to force medical practitioners to save the life of a child born alive following a pregnancy termination. During the Queensland election campaign, Katter’s Australian Party state MP Robbie Katter caused controversy by announcing he would press the LNP to support similar legislation if it won the election.

By seeking to have the Senate formally discharge the Canavan-Antic bill – citing Dutton’s wish that debate not be reopened ahead of a federal election – the Greens were pushing the pair and colleagues who supported them to either back their leader and abandon the bill, or defy him.

The government had avoided reopening public debate on the ever-sensitive issue as it too has differing views in its ranks on what is generally regarded in politics as a matter of conscience.

To avoid exposing division on its own side, the government had opted to leave the bill where it lay. But with this move, the Greens were provoking both major parties.

“Despite the two big parties wanting not to talk about a women’s right to choose, a bill to control and reduce women’s choices remains on the Senate notice paper,” Waters told Guardian Australia on Tuesday.

“If the two big parties genuinely believe that abortion is not a federal issue then they should vote to discharge this bill from the notice paper, and the Greens will move for that early next week.”

Without government agreement, a non-government bill cannot proceed to a vote.

But a procedural motion about a bill is different.

Acting on that distinction, United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet, who is staunchly opposed to abortion, used a motion in the Senate in August to draw attention to the dormant bill and force a debate on the issues it raised.