How did your MP vote on conscience issues?

• Information about conscience votes
• How did your local Member vote?
• EMILY's List
• Parliamentary Group on Population and Development

Information about Conscience Votes

There were no conscience votes in the last Federal Parliament (2008-2010).

However, there were two conscience votes in the prior Parliament (2004-2007), and the majority of the Members of the House of Representatives and Senators who participated in those votes are re-contesting this election. The record of each of the remaining Members and Senators who voted according to their conscience on the issues of the abortion drug, RU486, and on the cloning and destruction of human embryos for research, is provided here for your information. Both of these questions revolved around the sanctity of early human life.

Conscience votes are not a comprehensive measure of a politician's values. They are usually only held on sensitive questions of life, and do not apply to other important value matters where politicians usually follow their party’s line. Nonetheless, conscience votes do show how a politician approaches a significant ethical question, where their sense of values comes from, and what their personal view is on what we believe to be one of the most important questions of all: the protection of human life from conception to natural death.

EMILY's List

EMILY's List is a political network formed to increase the number of women Labor parliamentarians who are willing to support key feminist issues, including abortion. It provides financial, political and personal support to Labor women candidates who agree to support the values of EMILY's List. It is the only network of its kind in Australian politics.

EMILY's List members and candidates must support the principles of equity, diversity, pro-choice, and the provision of equal pay and childcare, both in the community and in Parliament. Many of these are significant issues but it is concerning that membership of such a network dictates a parliamentarian’s vote. For example, EMILY's List members consistently support pro-abortion policies, reflecting both their personal beliefs and their membership of the List. Without exception, every ALP parliamentarian named on EMILY's List voted to support the abortion drug RU486 and to permit the cloning of human embryos for destructive research.

Not all female Labor MPs or Senators are EMILY's List members. Some prominent ALP members such as NSW Senator Ursula Stephens, Tasmanian Senator Helen Polley and Victorian Senator Jacinta Collins support pro-life policies. However, if you want to support candidates who recognise the value of human life from its earliest stages then you need to know if your current representative or local candidate is a member of EMILY's List because List membership will determine her vote on these issues. Click here to find out.

Parliamentary Group on Population and Development

The Parliamentary Group on Population and Development (PGPD) is a cross-party collective in the Federal Parliament (and in the State and Territory Parliaments) that “supports the empowerment of women and girls through our commitment to gender equality”. It believes that "equality goes hand-in-hand with investments in sexual and reproductive health, education and economic opportunity". In "reproductive health", the group includes pregnancy termination services for women.

In 2008 the Senate Finance and Public Administration Standing Committee conducted an Inquiry into item 16525 in Part 3 of Schedule 1 to the Health Insurance (General Medical Services Table) Regulations 2007. The inquiry was essentially about whether the Federal Government should continue to pay for second trimester and late term abortions through Medicare. The PGPD wrote a submission to the inquiry which justified continued Medicare funding of late term abortion on the grounds that more children with disabilities would be born, placing greater stresses on the disability services budget. (See bottom of page 10 of the submission).

Fortunately, seven MPs disowned the PGPD submission lodged in their name. These MPs included Dr Brendan Nelson, Senator Allan Eggleston (who later resigned from the PGPD), Julie Bishop and Philip Ruddock. Three other MPs also wrote to ACL to distance themselves from the view of the PGPD that removing public funding of late term abortions would unreasonably strain the disability services budget. There are currently 45 members of the PGPD in the Federal Parliament. A full list of members can be found here.

What the Parties think

Public Christianity Freedom of religion // Prayer in parliament

International justice Overseas aid // Refugees // Religious security

Poverty Homelessness and housing affordability // Taxation considerations

Life Cloning // Euthanasia // Abortion // Abortion Data

Youth and Education Chaplaincy // Youth unemployment // National curriculum // School funding

Family Marriage // Parenting // Surrogacy and ART

Sexualisation of children Classification // Internet safety

Environment Climate Change

Justice Sharia law // Human Rights Act

Indigenous issues Indigenous welfare