Anti-abortion lobbyist booted from Labor party
The SA Labor Party has revoked controversial anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe’s membership following months of her campaigning against the party.
The SA Labor Party has revoked anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe’s membership, Howe revealed in a social media post this afternoon.
Howe joined the Labor party in November 2023, and InDaily understands members have been calling for her removal for months prior to this year’s election.
Howe shared a letter from SA Labor State Secretary Aemon Bourke which said the membership had “ceased” given she actively campaigned against the party at the March 2026 election.
The letter was sent on April 16, the Labor party confirmed, and it specified Howe’s conduct during the election breached Rule 36 of the party rulebook.
Rule 36 specifies: “a member of the party opposing an endorsed Labor Candidate or supporting a Candidate opposing a Labor Candidate or occupying a position on a committee or publicly speaking or canvassing on an opposing candidate’s behalf, shall automatically cease to be a member”.
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On March 15, 2026 Howe published a How to Vote recommendation on her social media channels that said she was voting for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, followed by Australian Family Party, the Liberals, Family First, The Nationals and United Voice Australia in the Legislative Council.
She made a second post on March 16 telling her social media followers “do not” vote for Labor, The Greens, the Animal Justice Party or Independent candidates Connie Bonaros, Tammy Franks or Jing Lee because these were candidates that had previously voted in favour for abortion access.
In the SA election, Howe registered her company as a “third party” with the SA Electoral Commission, allowing her to spend more than $10,000 on political messaging. This came after she outspent global mining giant BHP on Meta Advertising in November 2025 in a range of anti-abortion campaigns, including a bill to restrict late-term abortion in SA Parliament.
In her video posted today, Howe said she grew up as a Labor voter, but had not voted for the party “for years”. She said she did not care about having her membership torn up.
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Howe said she believed a video posted to her YouTube channel about former minister and now Speaker of the House Nat Cook was “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
In that video, posted on March 22, Howe followed Cook around a Hurtle Vale polling booth after Cook repeatedly declined an interview.
After staff asked Howe to leave, they locked the polling booth doors and police were called. Howe has also published social media content about Labor politicians Chris Picton, Premier Peter Malinauskas, Deputy Premier Kyam Maher, and other Greens and Independent politicians.
Howe has long campaigned for restrictions on SA’s abortion laws, authoring three bills that have come to parliament since 2024 to restrict late-term abortion; all have failed to pass.
Attorney General Kyam Maher said today that this was a “matter for the Labor party”.
“I have made comments before about how I think we should conduct ourselves in policy debates in South Australia,” he said.
“I don’t think the way some individuals have conducted themselves is very becoming and reflects the general tone we’ve often taken in South Australia to talk about ideas rather than sort of playing the man and talking about people. I just don’t think that’s a tone that South Australians welcome.”
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