One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has defended social media comments where he appeared to say “girls are not as good as boys”.

The comment was made on a Facebook post about Joyce’s attendance at an anti-abortion rally in Sydney on Tuesday night.

Joyce drew massive cheers from the crowd of about 2000 outside the NSW parliament when he told them his pro-life stance was one of conviction rather than of political opportunism.

“Politically, does this make you popular? No, you’d probably lose half your votes every time you do it. But you know why you do it because that’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Joyce, who left the Nationals in late 2025 as the far-right One Nation’s polling rise gathered pace, argued that galvanising support around the pro-life cause could change the political landscape.

One Nation has leapfrogged Labor to become the political party with the highest primary vote, according to a Redbridge poll this week.

“I don’t know much about a lot, but I know a lot about politics and the one thing politicians fear is losing their job. They’re very mindful of that,” Joyce said.

“You must keep that fire burning for those people who can’t stand up for themselves and I call them people – they’re not foetuses.”

Barnaby Joyce’s post on Tuesday night. Source: Facebook

Later he posted to Facebook about the rally.

“This law in NSW must be passed or otherwise we all accept that sex selection is appropriate. Girls are not as good as boys,” he wrote.

The post had more than 1500 comments by Wednesday afternoon, many of them critical of Joyce’s attendance and his apparent negative comparison of girls and boys.

Asked in Canberra on Wednesday about the sentence “girls are not as good as boys”, he said: “I posed the question that they’re obviously not. Have a read of it.

“I said if you support sex-determined abortions, then what’s happening is people are preferencing boys over girls. I actually don’t.”

Tuesday’s demonstration was organised by anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe in support of a bill in NSW parliament proposed by Libertarian MP John Ruddick to criminalise gender selective abortions.

Also on Tuesday, nurses and midwives descended on the Queensland parliament in a Brisbane showdown over an abortion pill as conservative MP Robbie Katter reopened debate on the controversial topic.

He caused an uproar after indicating he would move to block a legal change that would allow more nurses and midwives to administer abortion medication like MS-2 Step.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has put a gag on abortion debate at state parliament after termination of pregnancy laws became a major 2024 state election issue.

However, Katter’s disallowance motion does not mention abortion. Instead it targets updates to Queensland’s Medicines and Poisons framework that allow more nurses and midwives to prescribe medications, including the MS-2 Step early-termination pill.

“MS-2 Step is not a drug for the common cold, or even antibiotics – it’s a drug that kills defenceless, unborn children,” Katter said.

Nurses and midwives joined pro-choice supporters on Tuesday to accuse him of trying to strip women of practical access to care.

Nurses union’s assistant secretary midwifery Fridae King said reproductive health care was ”a right, not a privilege”, warning some women faced driving more than 300 kilometres for services.

”To those politicians who object, I say ‘hands off our healthcare; – women’s health is not a bargaining chip, it is a fundamental right,” she said.

The disallowance motion comes just months after LNP MP Nigel Dalton crossed the floor to vote with the Katter party to try to overturn Crisafulli’s abortion law debate gag.

On Tuesday,  state Health Minister Tim Nicholls insisted the Liberal National Party government would not change Queensland’s termination of pregnancy laws.

He accused the Labor opposition of using the Katter party motion to launch a scare campaign over potential abortion reforms under the LNP.

The opposition said the abortion issue had driven a wedge through the LNP government “as much as the Premier wants it to go away”.

-with AAP