Tense Exchange Between Election Volunteer and Pro-Life Candidate Over Abortion Messaging

Family First candidate says MCG-full of babies are aborted each year and is concerned government policies are not encouraging family creation.

People attend the 50th annual March for Life rally on the National Mall in Washington on Jan. 20, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Rae Rancie, a pro-life Family First candidate at the recent election says she was “shaken” after a disagreement with a polling volunteer about her campaigning against abortion.

The candidate for Jagajaga in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs was campaigning on her party’s policy for exceptions to late-term abortion laws.

In one viral video, a man representing the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) said they would call the police on her because her rhetoric about medical staff “killing babies” could lead to some voters lodging complaints.

The second video showed a female AEC supervisor confronting Rancie while asking her to stop mentioning Family First’s anti-late-abortion policies due to complaints that had been made.

Rancie said she was taken aback by the request from AEC volunteers to tone down her party’s pro-life policy messaging.

“I was shaken up afterwards, but I always fortify myself when I think ‘I’m doing this for the babies,’ and to let people know of this evil that is actually happening,” she said.

“I just wanted to make people know that we were pro-life.”

Family First candidate Rae Rancie. Courtesy of Family First

The AEC had requested one of the videos be taken down for the staff member’s privacy.

It also explained that when complaints are received, its policy is to give a polite reminder to candidates to “behave respectfully towards voters.”

“While the AEC recognises that candidates have a right to campaign outside of polling places, we also have a responsibility to voters who may find certain subjects confronting or may simply wish to not engage with candidates or campaigners,” an AEC spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

“Where complaints persist, both affected voters and the AEC have the option to call police.”

An ‘MCG’ Full of Babies Aborted Each Year: Rancie

Meanwhile, the New South Wales lower house just passed an amendment widening access to abortion pills, allowing registered nurses and midwives to prescribe the drugs to women up to nine weeks pregnant. Previously, only doctors could do so.

The bill was met with strong protests attended by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who opposed a new proposed rule to compel “conscientious objectors” to find alternative pathways for abortion for patients.

The bill was initially put forward by NSW Greens upper house MP Amanda Cohn, and was significantly scaled back before passing the upper house.

Rancie said it was confronting to see the scale of abortion in Australia, and that creating new life was no longer considered sacred.

“There are 88,000 little Australian babies who are killed every year. That’s an MCG,” she said, saying countries like South Korea had chronically low birth rates.

“It’s on the trajectory towards extinction because no one is having babies,” she said.

Concerns Welfare Scheme Supports Abortion

Rancie, 71, is a former financial planning small business owner, mother of 10 and grandmother of 28.

She said state and federal lawmakers needed to go back to providing incentives for young Australians to start a family, as former Treasurer Peter Costello did.

In 2004, the federal Howard government introduced a baby bonus—$3,000 per child at birth, later increased to $4,000, and then to $5,000—as a way to encourage population growth and prosperity.

Today, a government payment of $4,225 is available following late-term abortions under the Stillborn Baby Payment scheme.

The stillborn must be certified by a medical professional before the one-off payment can be made.

“What is this government doing? According to [pro-life activist Joanna Howe], every late-term abortion, you can apply for a stillbirth payment because the baby is stillborn, and you’ll get $4,230,” Rancie said.

Howe is a prominent pro-life activist and law lecturer at the University of Adelaide.

Late last year, she warned the program could be exploited, and claimed a hospital administrator had contacted her saying it “an increasing problem.”

“Since then, several midwives and nurses have contacted me to tell me of their distress in delivering stillborn babies, who were killed in-utero through an injection of potassium chloride, and then being forced to sign off on paperwork that allows the mother to receive the payment,” Howe wrote on Facebook.

Public Hospitals Should Not Be Allowed to Opt Out of Abortion: Greens

NSW Greens MP Amanda Cohn introduced the Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Health Care Access) Bill 2025, which the Greens believe can expand abortion services “to every corner” of the state.

Abortion was made legal in NSW in 2019, but the Greens believe services are not widespread enough.

“Abortion services are not something public hospitals with the capability to provide them should be able to opt out of,” Cohn said.