Queensland’s opposition leader has categorically ruled out repealing abortion laws if he is elected in 2024, five years after he voted against its decriminalisation.
David Crisafulli on Tuesday distanced himself from the 2020 pledge of his Liberal National party (LNP) predecessor, Deb Frecklington, to review abortion laws if elected.
The topic reared its head again in October after Crisafulli announced the preselection of the former federal senator Amanda Stoker to the seat of Oodgeroo.
Stoker has attended anti-abortion rallies and has expressed strong pro-life views.
Crisafulli on Tuesday said repealing abortion laws would not be “a priority” for the LNP if the party won the election in October next year.
Pressed further on whether he would rule out winding back the laws, Crisafulli responded: “If I say it’s not a priority, there’s not going to be changes.”
“No changes for four years [if we are elected],” he said at the Queensland Media Club.
Asked if Stoker’s anti-abortion views would alienate younger voters, Crisafulli said the LNP was a broad church.
“The joy about our political movement … is we have a diversity of opinions, ages, backgrounds – and we are stronger for it.
“It’s not a priority … for [Stoker’s] voters either. Her voters, I believe, would say the same thing that my voters do.”
Crisafulli had personally voted against the full decriminalisation of abortion in 2018. Only three LNP members broke ranks to support the laws, including Steve Minnikin, Jann Stuckey and Tim Nicholls.
On Tuesday he also addressed another past LNP controversy – the enormous cuts to the public sector under the Newman government, in which he served as a minister.
During his time in office, Newman made 14,000 workers redundant or redeployed them to other areas of the public sector.
Crisafulli promised there would be “no forced redundancies” to the public sector if he was elected.
Asked about “the ghosts of the past”, Crisafulli conceded the cuts to the public sector under the Newman government were “wrong” and “didn’t work”.
“In order to deliver that turnaround in the services, we need the public service to feel valued and respected. And we need them to feel empowered and safe in their jobs,” he said.
“We have learned and we have acknowledged and reflected on the [past election] result and Queenslanders spoke.”
Crisafulli announced a seven-point plan to “empower” the public service sector, including establishing an independent public sector commission, reviewing internal complaints procedures and expanding existing graduate programs.
“In the next 12 months you will see a host of fanciful claims and boogeyman stories from the government about me, the LNP and a government that by the election will have been gone for a decade,” Crisafulli said.
“Labor has nothing more to add to a vision for Queensland and all they have left is to fight the ghosts of the past.”
The transport minister, Mark Bailey, accused Crisafulli of a “shallow effort” to announce new policies.
“He absolutely said nothing of any substance,” Bailey said.
“Campbell Newman said [there’d be no forced redundancies] 10 years ago. David Crisafulli was in the cabinet that cut 14,000 jobs from Queensland and made no apologies for it.
“It’s hard to believe anything the LNP say.”
Crisafulli’s appearance at the Queensland Media Club came after the premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, pulled out of the event and then later rescheduled to attend in February.
