Margaret Gleeson, Sydney
On March 12, 1000 people rallied in opposition to the Coalition government's anti-women, anti-worker agenda, to mark International Women's Day.
Women of all ages and backgrounds were united in calling for the immediate dismissal of health minister Tony Abbott, for his stated aim of restricting access to abortion and contraceptive services.
Margaret Kirkby from the NSW Reproductive Rights Coalition told the rally that anti-woman parliamentarians opposed to abortion were not keen to introduce legislation to restrict abortion because they knew that they were in a minority, both within the wider community and in parliament. Instead, the tactic was to whittle away reproductive rights at the edges. Kirkby described National Party Senator Ron Boswell's 16 questions on notice about abortion as a "fishing expedition for information that would be used against women seeking abortions".
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said that the Boswell tactic was similar to one used by the religious right and their legislative backers in the US. There, information gathered was used to launch criminal prosecutions against women and abortion providers.
Kirkby also condemned moves to limit Medicare rebates for abortions, and called for only non-directive, non-judgmental counselling services to receive public funding. Currently, Catholic pregnancy support services (which do not provide information on abortion or refer women to services that will provide non-judgmental counselling and information) receive $918,000 from the health department. This is far in excess of funding to feminist women's health services or migrant women's services.
A number of unions were represented at the rally and march, including the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, the Community and Public Sector Union, the NSW Teacher's Federation, the Finance Sector Union and the United Services Union.
The rally was chaired by Sydney University SRC president Rose Jackson and also addressed by Maree O'Halloran, president of the NSW Teacher's Federation and federal ALP member for Sydney Tanya Plibersek, who both pointed out that women workers had the most to lose from the Coalition government's proposed changes to industrial laws.
From Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005.
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