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Labor and the Coalition have blocked a vote on a bill that would have banned the shackling of incarcerated women during childbirth, with the government saying it was the responsibility of the states and territories.

Independent senator Lidia Thorpe introduced the bills, which would prevent shackling and stop children being strip-searched, into the Senate.

“In 2026 people can be shackled while giving birth, and children canalso have their clothes removed by adults to examine their bodies legally,” Thorpe told the Senate.

“The people sitting in this room have the power to end these barbaric, inhumane traumatic and totally unnecessary practices.”

The government said “the responsibility of the criminal justice system predominantly sits with state and territory governments”, while the Coalition said it “understands the intent” of the bill but also would not support its passage.

Paul Scarr, a Queensland Liberal senator, broke ranks to condemn the major parties, describing himself as “deeply concerned” by the Australia-wide practice and vowing to raise it with the Queensland attorney general, Deb Frecklington.

He urged the prime minister to convene a national cabinet meeting.

“What I’ve heard deeply concerns me and I do hope that this vote shouldn’t be an end to this matter, we’ve got to do better than this and we’ve got to look at ways this issue can be addressed,” Scarr said.

The only data on giving birth while incarcerated was from 2017, when 25 women gave birth.

Fifteen years ago, the UN general assembly adopted the Bangkok rules on the treatment of female prisoners, which state that prison should be a last resort for pregnant women and that “instruments of restraint shall never be used on women during labour, during birth and immediately after birth”.

The rules were adopted unanimously by the general assembly. But around the world, they are regularly flouted.

Thorpe told Guardian Australia she was disheartened by the government and Coalition blocking the vote on the bill, and promised to reintroduce it.

She said every senator she had spoken to about the bill ahead of debate on Thursday was shocked by the practice, yet failed to support the bill.

“It’s just so demoralising and so disrespectful and disappointing to all of those women and children that are being tortured through these outdated, barbaric practices,” she said.

“The hearts were bleeding from all of these senators, but come vote time they blocked the vote from happening because they did not want to be seen out there in this country to be supporting these practices.”

She argued there was no legal advice to say the government could not override the states to ban the practice.

The Greens leader, David Shoebridge, was scathing of the two major parties in rejecting the bill.

“The Labor party and the Coalition come in here and say it’s a matter for states and territories if they want to shackle women to a bed while they’re giving birth we’ll just let them do that,” he told the Senate. “Don’t torture women giving birth and don’t strip-search children.”

The independent senator David Pocock said the government should support bills from the crossbench.

“Unfortunately it seems to be when a bill is brought forward in good faith by crossbenchers the government has this policy that they will not support any bills other than their own bills and I don’t think that speaks to a healthy democracy.”

The National Justice Project described both shackling and the strip searching of children as “inhumane, traumatic and profoundly harmful”

The fact that they continue to occur would shock many Australians, it feels unimaginable to think about them happening to you or members of your family,” systems reform advocate Maureen Harris said.

“They are discriminatory in their impact on First Nations Australians. They breach our international human rights obligations and our responsibilities to protect children and ensure safety and dignity for women in childbirth.”

A national response is necessary, Harris said, and a failure to vote for the bills was an abandonment of those responsibilities.

Mish Pony is the chief executive at Flat Out, which supports incarcerated women, trans and gender diverse people.

They said the practice of shackling during childbirth should be immediately abolished and that the commonwealth had the power to do so.

“Labor and the Coalition have decided to leave this up to the states and territories. The national prisons guidelines already state that restraints are not to be used during and immediately following childbirth, yet the practice continues,” they said.

“It is clear that leaving it up to the states and territories is no longer an option.

“The commonwealth is ultimately responsible for ensuring Australia meets its international human rights obligations and has the power to legislate to do so, as it has before.”

The Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives said the practice was “inconsistent with safe, respectful and culturally safe maternity care and poses unacceptable risks to the health, wellbeing and dignity of women and babies”

A social media account associated with a One Nation Victorian candidate has been made private. But Crikey has the screenshots, which show an array of disturbing, fringe views.

A social media account that appears to be run by a One Nation candidate has a history of posting offensive, Islamophobic, ableist and racist content, as well as references to far-right conspiracy theories.

Matthew Collins, the party’s candidate for Melbourne in the upcoming Victorian state election, says in campaign material he “wants Melbourne restored to its former prosperity and security”, adding the state has been “mismanaged” and noting his “signature passion and resolve”.

Social media outlet Toilet Paper Australia first identified a selection of posts expressing extreme, fringe and offensive views on the X account matthewsright as having been made by Collins. The Herald Sun later reported the contents of these posts.

Crikey has obtained access to many additional posts made by the account, which has since been made private, and paint an even starker picture of the range of views expressed.

matthewsright’s sordid social media history The X account matthewsright posted a recording of Bunurong elder Mark Brown being booed at ANZAC Day dawn services in April this year, calling it “the sound of patriots”. It later emerged the booing of Welcomes to Country were in part organised efforts from far-right organisations, and at least one person convicted in relation to his booing of a Sydney ceremony was a member of a neo-Nazi group.

The same day, the account wrote: “Identity politics has no place in our national commemorative days of mourning and solitude. Remove the disrespectful ‘welcome to country’ from all ANZAC Day services…”.

The writer also claimed to have met opposition leader Jess Wilson, and said he had “been around her more than most”. The account described the opposition leader as an “entitled, narcissistic, spoiled brat”.

There are also responses to posts by Muslim New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, including images of the 9/11 attacks, and reference to him as having a “resting jihad face”. Another post saw the word “deport” above a photograph of Muslim Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi. In July 2026, one post described deporting Faruqi as the “only good use of our taxpayer dollars associated with her”.

In February 2026, a post said: “opposition to Islam is a national security matter and a duty of self-preservation”.

“To oppose parties like [One Nation and Restore Britain] or decry leaders such as [Rupert Lowe and Pauline Hanson] as some sort of criminal monsters is an insult to the intelligence of the public and common sense in general. Resistance to the Islamisation of the West cannot be stopped, nor should it. We have to carry the fire!”

A post from January 2025 read: “the gender tyrants are the satanic grooming cultists who wear the [pronoun] badges to signal their malicious intent to each other … this helps them lure their vulnerable prey.”

The account has also made several references to conspiracy theories such as the “deep state” and the “New World Order”. One post read: “Covid was released on purpose to unseat Trump, destroy any resistance to the uniparty and guarantee an indefinite deep state grip on power”, and in May 2025 said that Australia Day and ANZAC Day would “be further bastardised and watered down until they’re entirely co-opted and repurposed to suit NWOstralia”.

In a post responding to Pope Leo’s calls for peace in the West Bank in mid-August, the account said: “Christendom is under assault and his holiness is cringepoasting Islamist slop”.

Another tweet, responding to a post about a “decolonisation forum”, read: “Islamofascist foid is retardmaxxing. How about they decolonise constantiople (sic) and armenia and syria and kurdistan”. In a similar vein, the account referred to Australian Financial Review journalist Mark Di Stefano as a “retard”.

Linking Matthew Collins to the account

Neither Collins nor One Nation Victoria answered questions or repeated follow-ups from Crikey. In a call made to a phone number associated with Collins, on being told Crikey’s reporter was the caller, a man replied, “Fuck off, cunt,” and immediately hung up.

There are, however, many posts that link Collins directly to the account.

The night after One Nation’s “Meet the Candidates” event held on August 3, matthewsright implied he was in attendance or had intimate knowledge of the event itself, saying “a large contingent of moronic authoritarian terrorist thralls came out to stand in the rain last night in an attempt to disrupt and prevent [Pauline Hanson] and [Victorian leader Warren Pickering] from even holding a campaign event”.

Archives of the account’s tweets show dozens of posts in support of One Nation and Pauline Hanson, many regarding the upcoming Victorian state election. In early May, the account, then bearing a profile image of Collins wearing a One Nation shirt and appearing to hold an Australian flag, said “policy documents won’t be released for a time. There’s 900+ candidates applicants (sic) being reviewed at the moment.”

The profile image comes from a photograph taken by The Age during the Nepean by-election, which featured Victorian One Nation MLC Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell alongside Collins. The X account posted the photo and wrote on May 4, two days after the Nepean by-election: “I love that I had the idea for this photo … We were taking pics for ourselves then the Age guy came up and wanted a shot too. Such a great moment on what was an awesome and hard fought, honest, clean campaign.”

On May 5, the matthewsright account refers to relatively intimate knowledge of the One Nation candidate vetting process, and wrote: “Policy documents won’t be released for a time. There’s 900+ candidates applicants (sic) being reviewed at the moment.”

There is also a YouTube account with the same username, profile picture and description as the X account matthewsright. It lists a clip of Collins playing The Seekers’ “I am Australian” on the harmonica.

A Twitch account with similar details also carries references to Collins’ wedding, and sources speaking to Crikey on the condition of anonymity corroborated those details, as well as attested that the X account belongs to Collins.

An additional post by matthewsright in early August, in response to a video of apparent shoplifting, said: “I used to arrest coward dogs like these all the time. But there’s nothing you can do when they do the flash mob group theft.” Sources said Collins previously has claimed to work in retail security for makeup giant Sephora.

Collins is running against Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell, who holds the seat with 60% of the two-candidate-preferred vote.

The revelations about Collins’ social media activity are the latest in a line of various vetting-related issues with One Nation candidates in the upcoming state election. Crikey was first to report on Northern Metro candidate Mark Nicholson’s claims to have been a criminal lawyer, for which we found no record of admission, while other candidates appear to have inflated their CVs in different ways.

Exclusive: Out-of-pocket costs for abortion care to be covered regardless of who wins November election as Jess Wilson says Liberals and Nationals ‘will not allow Labor to play politics on this issue’

Victoria will become the first state in Australia to make access to abortion care free, no matter who wins the November election, with the Coalition matching Labor’s promise just hours after it was announced as it attempts to neutralise the issue.

The opposition leader, Jess Wilson, on Thursday afternoon told Guardian Australia a Liberal National Coalition government would match Labor’s commitment to cover out-of-pocket costs for abortion care up to 16 weeks’ gestation. This would include GP and specialist consultations, scans, tests or medication, which can quickly add up to more than $1,000.

The commitment means Victoria will become the first state in Australia to offer free universal access to abortion services, following the Australian Capital Territory which began covering out-of-pocket costs in 2023.

The Coalition would also expand the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme so that women in regional Victoria who must travel long distances for abortion care would also be eligible for subsidised travel and accommodation.

“The Liberals and Nationals will not allow Labor to play politics on this issue,” Wilson said.

“Labor has had 12 years to improve access to healthcare but are instead choosing to play politics.”

However, the Victorian opposition would not match Labor’s commitment to extend access to medical abortion from nine to 10 weeks’ gestation or its plan to commission a clinical review into whether it could safely be offered at up to 12 weeks’ gestation.

Currently, medical abortion is subsidised through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for use up to nine weeks but the World Health Organization’s guidance allows for up to 12.

“Only Labor will protect a woman’s right to choose,” Labor’s health minister, Ingrid Stitt, said when she announced the election commitment on Thursday morning.

Stitt’s statement suggested that One Nation could use abortion as a negotiating chip with the Coalition in the event of a hung parliament. It read: “Polling shows the Liberals and One Nation can only form a government together. And One Nation wants to make abortion a criminal offence.”

However, Wilson on Thursday again ruled out changes to abortion laws under a Coalition government.

“Victorians know where I stand on this issue. There will be no changes to abortion laws under a government I lead. Full stop. And I think it’s incredibly disappointing to see Labor playing politics with women’s reproductive rights five minutes before an election,” she said.

Wilson has previously described abortion as a personal decision that should be made by women in consultation with healthcare professionals.

The premier, Ben Carroll, earlier on Thursday said Labor “decriminalised abortion and we will stand up for it” as he warned that One Nation posed a threat.

“Let’s be very clear: you’ve seen the leader of One Nation very clearly say that he wants to roll back access to abortion. He wants to rob women of their right to choose their own future,” Carroll told reporters.

Abortion was decriminalised in Victoria in 2008, with women able to obtain a termination during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, and later if they obtain the agreement of two doctors.

The Greens say WA senator Jordon Steele-John has taken leave from the party room following reports he made inappropriate comments towards women.

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that a letter from seven party members was sent to Greens leader David Shoebridge on Tuesday night.

The letter states the group has been made aware of "multiple allegations" against the senator that span from 2017 to 2025.

"These allegations all concern his behaviour in the presence of women," the authors wrote, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

"We are aware of multiple women who have taken up roles or volunteered in the party, who because of these allegations, have been warned not to … be alone with him."

One former WA Greens convener told the ABC that it was well-known within the party that there were concerns about Senator Steele-John's behaviour towards women.

In a statement to the ABC, Senator Steele-John said he had referred the matter to the WA Greens.

"I utterly reject this characterisation of me, which tries to assert I am someone I am not," he said.

"I have referred this matter to the WA Greens, so that a fair, independent process can be commissioned that upholds the principles of natural justice and ensures procedural fairness for everyone involved.

"These claims are made without specifics, any allegation of this nature is extremely serious and must be treated accordingly.

"If someone has made an allegation, I am prepared to address it."

In relation to one of the alleged complaints, the senator said he was the victim of abuse and had been working with WA Police to address it.

Senator Shoebridge said the party was taking the concerns "extremely seriously" and that the matter had been referred to the WA Greens, who will commission an independent inquiry.

In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, Senator Shoebridge said he was unaware of any allegations against Senator Steele-John before he received the letter on Tuesday.

"I've dealt with it with the urgency which I think is appropriate," Senator Shoebridge said.

"I will not be engaging in a running commentary on the matter, because it is going to a fair and independent and timely process."

He did not put a timeline on the inquiry process or say whether the findings would be made public, and added that the integrity of the complaints process was "essential".

The ABC has been told Senator Shoebridge's office has consulted with the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service and the WA Greens.

Senator Steele-John entered parliament in 2017 after then-WA senator Scott Ludlum was ruled ineligible due to his dual citizenship.

His portfolios include disability inclusion, health and mental health.

He has been one of the Senate's most vocal opponents to the government's NDIS cuts.

The Health Department is running a consultation on specialist fees. It closes 12pm Monday 19 October.

The questions focus on what doctors charge. They don't ask about the $7.56b a year taxpayers give private health insurers, where our premiums actually go, or why Medicare rebates haven't kept up with costs.

If your premiums keep going up, your policy covers less than you thought, a claim got knocked back, or you only bought cover to avoid the tax penalty, tell them in your own words. It takes about 10 minutes.

Have your say here:

https://consultations.health.gov.au/medicare-benefits-and-digital-health-division/options-to-address-excessive-fees/

Not affiliated with any party, insurer or lobby group. Sources are on the last image, with links in the comments. Happy to be corrected.