NSW Premier Chris Minns speaks to the media on the abortion debate and Joanna Howe's stance. Video via AAP
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00:00There's enormous amounts of misinformation and lies that have been spread by her on social media
00:05and it's whipped up a lot of good people in the community believing that the reform changes,
00:10the legislative changes, are far more extensive than they in fact were.
00:14And I had a lot of constituents in my community coming and saying,
00:18for example, the vision that has remained for nurse practitioners to be able to distribute meditation
00:23in line with TGA guidelines.
00:25The rumour that was circulating, and I'm not saying it's necessarily spread by this act
00:30that was certainly going around the community, was that they would be compelled to do it
00:35and if they didn't do it, then their licence would be yanked.
00:38The conscientious objection did not apply.
00:41And that's clearly incorrect.
00:42And I think that there are genuine differences,
00:45particularly when you have a matter as sensitive as abortion.
00:48It's not helped by putting enormous amounts of misinformation into the debate.
00:53So as for threatening politicians about what you will or won't do,
00:57well, that's a matter for activists,
00:59but generally speaking, Australian politicians,
01:02regardless of their background or ideology,
01:04react incredibly poorly to that kind of threat.
01:07And my experience, particularly in functions votes,
01:10and this doesn't just apply to the Labour Party,
01:12is that people come to these issues and make a genuine dispute
01:15about what's in the message of their community
01:17and make the call and they'll usually resist that kind of bullying.