Victorian Labor’s plan to make abortion free has been years in the making. But make no mistake: the timing of the announcement is pure politics.
On Thursday morning, the state’s health minister, Ingrid Stitt, announced if re-elected in November, Labor would invest $۳۰m over four years to remove the out-of-pocket cost of abortion care, which can quickly add up to more than $۱,۰۰۰.
Under the plan, participating private providers would be paid to deliver medical and surgical abortions up to ۱۶ weeks’ gestation. Women would no longer have to pay for GP and specialist consultations, scans, tests or medication. Those in regional Victoria who must travel long distances for care would also be eligible for a subsidy.
The government would extend access to medical abortion from nine to ۱۰ weeks’ gestation, while commissioning a clinical review into whether it could safely be offered at up to ۱۲ weeks’ gestation. Currently in Victoria, women are able to obtain a termination during the first ۲۴ weeks of pregnancy, and later if they obtain the agreement of two doctors.
Thursday’s election commitment would be a substantial reform, building on years of work to improve access to reproductive healthcare under former premier Jacinta Allan and her then health minister Mary-Anne Thomas. The duo established ۲۰ sexual and reproductive health hubs across Victoria, a mobile clinic that delivers medical abortion services to women in remote and regional parts of the state and a virtual women’s health clinic. In its first year, almost ۶۰% of appointments at the virtual clinic supported medical abortion.
At a government symposium on abortion care last year, affordability was identified as one of the biggest barriers to access. At the event, Danielle Mazza, head of Monash University’s department of general practice and the SPHERE Centre of Research Excellence in Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health, argued the state should look to the UK, where abortion care is publicly funded through the NHS, and Ireland, where GPs are subsidised to provide the service.
On Thursday, Mazza said Labor’s announcement brings Victoria into line with those jurisdictions and would make it the first Australian state to provide abortion care without out-of-pocket costs. Only the ACT currently offers free abortion services.
“I applaud this policy announcement, and if it’s implemented, it will make Victoria the leading state in abortion access and reproductive rights,” she says. “It would address a lot of issues that key stakeholders have been advocating for many years.”
Crossbench MPs had also been pushing for improved access. Last year, Legalise Cannabis MP Rachel Payne and Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell released a report calling for abortion care to be made free; their first recommendation was to make abortion free.
The state Greens’ leader, Ellen Sandell, told ABC Radio Melbourne on Thursday morning her party had also had offered to work with the government on the issue.
So, why, after ۱۲ years in government and with all polls pointing to their defeat, is Labor acting now?
The answer is in Stitt’s media release – which claimed polling showed the Liberals and One Nation could only form government together, that One Nation sought to make abortion “a criminal offence” and that a “Liberal-One Nation Coalition will American our health system.”
Trades Hall has also adopted similar language, recently launching a campaign urging people to “vote like your right to a safe abortion depends on it”. Its posters claim the Liberals “won’t have the guts” to stop One Nation’s plans to “roll back safe abortion laws”. They even feature a coat hanger – a stark symbol of the dangers of unsafe abortion.
They say the campaign is resonating with voters, particularly in the context of abortion debates in other states and in the United States. This is backed up by a March ۲۰۲۶ Redbridge poll commissioned by The Australia Institute ahead of the South Australian election, which found that ۶۲% of Australians support access to abortion, with an additional ۲۵% supporting access in limited circumstances. Notably, even ۵۰% of One Nation voters supported abortion access.
The Victorian Liberal leader, Jess Wilson, has repeatedly and emphatically ruled out changes to abortion laws under a Coalition government, in an attempt to stave off a scare campaign similar to that employed by Labor at the ۲۰۲۴ Queensland election.
At that election, Labor premier Steven Miles claimed the Liberal National party would allow changes to the state’s laws. It clearly cut through, because immediately after winning office, David Crisafulli moved to prevent parliamentary debate or changes on abortion for the term.
It is harder for Wilson to draw a line under the issue, given One Nation is now polling at about ۲۰% of the primary vote in Victoria.
Their federal leader, Pauline Hanson, has said she was not against abortion in the first trimester – a position that has not been reflected in the party’s national platform, which pledges to “seek every opportunity to roll back brutal and extreme abortion law”.
In ۲۰۲۴, Pickering joined anti-abortion activists at a “March for Babies” in Melbourne and posted on Facebook that Victoria’s abortion laws were “some of the most draconian on the planet”. At a ۲۰۲۲ candidate’s forum, he said One Nation would “seek to bring the abortion gestation period back to what it previously was – ۱۲ weeks [off] the top of my head”.
But for Payne and Purcell, One Nation is beside the point. On Thursday, they said barriers to abortion care “did not suddenly emerge because One Nation has threatened our right to healthcare”.
Payne said she felt a “sense of sadness” it took the government so long to act on the issue, while Purcell said “our bodies should not be on the ballot at all”.”
Sandell similarly she had heard from many women this morning who were disappointed it had become an election issue.
“It’s just an example of politicians playing politics with women’s health care and I think that’s really sad,” she said.
