Cherish Life Defends its Federal Election Campaign as Truthful & Accurate, Amidst Labor’s Labelling it “Lies”
Cherish Life has criticised federal Labor for slurring its federal election Put Labor Last campaign as “lies”.
See:
The Blue Mountains Gazette, “Queensland anti-abortion group targets Labor in Macquarie”, 13 May
The Feed, SBS, “The Worst of Election Material”, 25 May
Sky News, Husic points to misrepresentation of abortion policy for Labor vote loss, 30 May
SMH/ Sun-Herald, "Labor women bracing to defend party abortion platform", 2 June 2019
“For Labor say our campaign was built on ‘baseless lies’ is a lie itself, and offensive.” Ms Teeshan Johnson, executive director of Cherish Life Queensland said.
“Our messaging and campaign was truthful.
“All our advertising (TV, radio, print & digital), which contained the same messaging as our flyers, passed teams of independent lawyers at the various media outlets, as we were able to prove every statement.
- Our campaign TV ad obtained CAD approval and was given a G rating for free-to-air TV - it subsequently aired on Channel 7 and Channel 10 WIN,
- Our campaign radio ad played on several ARN and Grand Brothers radio stations,
- Our newspaper ads were printed in 8 different News Corp papers, and one Seven West Media paper; and
- Our digital media ads featured on News Corp platforms in Qld.
(PROOF OF MESSAGING STATEMENTS IN APPENDIX BELOW)
“Labor is evidently angry they lost the election, but this doesn’t excuse them lashing out at us. They need to take responsibility for their own policies.
“Such an extreme abortion agenda was always going to cost Labor - letting voters know the facts of a party’s radical abortion plans is part of Cherish Life’s duty as a pro-life organisation.
“If Labor want us to leave them alone they need to change their commitment to radical abortion reform. The hijacking of a once noble political party by the abortion lobby is one of Australia’s great political tragedies.” Ms Johnson said.
ENDS
Appendix: Proof of Messaging Statements
- “More babies would die under a Bill Shorten Labor Government” and “More babies would die under Labor.”
When the Victorian Labor government passed the Abortion Reform Act (2008), which effectively legalised abortion up to birth for any reason, it led to an average annual increase of 39% increase in late-term (post 20 weeks gestation) terminations [including a full-term healthy baby of a healthy woman in 2011 (refer to table on page 162)]. It is logical that removing all restraints to abortion in other states and territories would also lead to an increase in late-term abortions.
- “Federal Labor has an extreme late-term abortion agenda” & “Abortion would be legal until birth for any reason, around Australia.”
Catherine King MP and Tanya Plibersek MP, who crafted federal Labor’s abortion policy, are on record as saying some of the intent of Labor’s federal election 2019 abortion policy was to improve access to abortion around Australia as well as "fix" the “patchwork ofinconsistent [abortion] laws” (i.e. standardise abortion laws) across Australia. Australia’s abortion laws are different from state to state – the states/ territories with the most permissible laws being ACT followed by Victoria and Qld. These three states have legalised late-term abortion, up to birth, for any reason. Given the two initiatives of (i) wanting to standardise abortion laws across Australia and (ii) wanting to increase abortion access around Australia, other states and territories would have been pressured to implement abortion laws / abortion access modelled on ACT’s laws or those of Victoria/Qld.
- “Free abortions at public hospitals”
Labor made it crystal clear they would pressure states, through the threat of withholding commonwealth health funding, to fully decriminalise abortion (NSW / SA), improve access to abortion and to provide funding for “free” abortions at taxpayer-funded hospitals.
- “More women would be harmed under Labor”
The physical and psychological risks of abortion to women are well-documented in numerous studies from around the world. Just one tragic statistic is that a woman who has had an abortion is 6 times more likely to commit suicide.
- “If Labor wins it will be a public health disaster”
Given points 1-4, it’s clear such an extreme federal government-imposed abortion regime would have been a public health disaster, including putting extra pressure on our already busy hospitals.
More sources can be found at www.laborlast.org.au. For details on the national Put Labor Last campaign, please see our previous media release.
Nationwide Pro-Life ‘Put Labor Last’ campaign deemed Highly Effective – 25 marginal Seats Targeted, with Measurable Success
Cherish Life Queensland is overjoyed with the life-valuing outcome of the federal election.
“Labor boasted about its extreme late-term abortion policy platform at its national conference late last year. What Labor promised meant that if Bill Shorten won government, through the threat of withholding federal health funding, all legal protection from the unborn would have been removed right across Australia and taxpayer-funded public hospitals would have been forced to perform abortions on request - even late-term abortions of healthy babies of healthy mothers.
“This policy was absolutely disgraceful and abhorrent, and as advocates for the right to life and protectors of unborn human life we simply had to act, and act big,” Ms Teeshan Johnson, executive director of Cherish Life Queensland said.
“We designed a national ‘Put Labor Last’ campaign to educate Australians on Labor’s disturbing open-slather abortion mission. (Campaign details including the 25 target seats are below.)
“Our multi-faceted pro-life campaign was run in 25 marginal seats across Australia. Of those seats 17 were Liberal/LNP/Independent and 8 Labor. Of the Coalition seats, we were successful in helping to retain all but 2, and helped oust pro-abortion Labor in 5 seats plus help transfer the seat of Chisholm back to the Liberals.
"Queensland had particularly good results. Our investment per seat was biggest in Queensland, so too our network being a state-based organisation. Many people in Queensland are still angry at the Queensland Labor Government for legalising late-term abortion up to birth, for any reason last year – and a number of these people quickly became "Put Labor Last" activists, in turn influencing whole communities to vote Labor and Greens last.
"The fact is, the truth about Labor's policies hurt them, and quite frankly they deserved it. Politicians and parties who advocate blatant savagery do not deserve to be in Parliament and all efforts will always be made to remove them or to stop them taking power.
“In some seats where we worked extensively there has been over a 11% swing towards to Coalition. While the counting continues - we can already see the success of the campaign is quite incredible in some areas. In the Forde electorate in Queensland, which was sitting on a 0.6% margin, we ran a concentrated and local Put Labor Last campaign, which no doubt helped usher in the swing of over 8% against Labor. Another particularly pleasing aspect of this wonderful election result was helping to oustEMILY’s List pro-abortion activists in Herbert, Longman and Braddon.
“It's been a great victory for life which will no doubt go down in the history books. Overall, it’s fair to say Cherish Life’s national Put Labor Last campaign played a small but significant role in a miraculous election victory,” Ms Johnson said.
CAMPAIGN DETAILS
- 710,000 educational flyers (photo below)– letterboxed in 25 electorates in Qld, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania, SA & WA by pro-life activists.
- TV commercial – aired quite extensively on Channel 7 and Channel 10 WIN in Rockhampton over the electorates of Flynn and Capricornia, in Mackay (Dawson) and Townsville (Herbert and Dawson), as well as a lighter run on Channel 7 in Perth metro, Brisbane metro and Sydney metro.
- Radio ad - airing the attached radio ad on top stations in north and central Queensland, northern Tasmania, Brisbane metro, Sydney metro (including the Blue Mountains) and Perth metro (covering the 4 target electorates).
- Print newspaper ads in statewide newspapers (Qld x 2 ads, NSW, WA & TAS), regional papers (Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton & Emerald) & local papers (Logan area).
- Social media targeted and tailored communications in key regions.
- Digital media in Queensland (News Corp) for 4 days (photo at top of press release).
- Community engagement and influence with our wonderful supporters to motivate their own communities to PUT LABOR LAST.
- Election Day support - in an unprecedented fashion, the day before the election we encouraged our supporters to hand out how-to-vote cards for the LNP after seeing the polls were so tight, in the final bid to keep Labor out.
- PUT LABOR LAST campaign URL: www.laborlast.org.au
25 TARGET SEATS
QLD – 9 Seats
- FLYNN – LNP RETAIN
- CAPRICORNIA – LNP RETAIN
- HERBERT – LNP GAIN
- LONGMAN – LNP GAIN
- PETRIE - LNP RETAIN
- DICKSON- LNP RETAIN
- FORDE- LNP RETAIN
- BONNER – LNP RETAIN
- DAWSON - LNP RETAIN
NSW- 5 seats
- LINDSAY – LIBERAL GAIN
- MACUARIE – ALP RETAIN
- ROBERTSON – LIBERAL RETAIN
- BANKS – LIBERAL RETAIN
- GILMORE – ALP GAIN
WA – 4 seats
- SWAN - LIBERAL RETAIN
- COWAN – ALP RETAIN
- HASLUCK – LIBERAL RETAIN
- PEARCE – LIBERAL RETAIN
VICTORIA – 3 seats
- CHISHOLM -– LIBERAL GAIN
- LA TROBE – LIBERAL RETAIN
- DUNKLEY – ALP GAIN
TASMANIA – 3 seats
- BASS – LIBERAL GAIN
- BRADDON – LIBERAL GAIN
- LYONS – ALP RETAIN
SA – 1 seat
- BOOTHBY- LIBERAL RETAIN
N.B. Our sister organisation in Victoria, Pro-Life Victoria generously paid for the PUT LABOR LAST flyers for their state and arranged distribution, and our sister organisation in WA, Right to Life WA did a tremendous job of distributing around 120,000 flyers in the 4 target seats there.
MESSAGING
LETTERBOX FLYER FOR QLD
Newspaper print ad for outside of Qld / Letterbox flyer for NSW, VIC, TAS, WA & SA shared this messaging
