Yesterday, Tanya Plibersek emerged at the head of a push for federal Labor to scrap a conscience vote on the issue of same sex marriage, and instead, bind all MPs in support of marriage equality.
It was a ballsy move, and it has inspired Christine Forster, a Liberal councillor from Sydney and the sister of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, to make another push for marriage equality support within the LNP.
As of right now, Liberal MPs are bound to vote against same sex marriage, however, Forster has urged the party to consider a conscience vote, saying that it can not credibly go into the next election without addressing the matter.
“If Labor went to a vote with that as policy and the Liberals had a conscience vote it would probably get up,” Forster said.
A number of Liberal party figures have flagged that they would support a conscience vote, including Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and junior ministers Josh Frydenberg and Simon Birmingham.
Forster has been pushing her brother to reconsider his views on same sex marriage for some time now. In 2013, she said that he was beginning to feel conflicted about his opposition, and that his view was was “slowly shifting.”
Last year, a portrait of Forster and her partner Virginia Edwards, entitled ‘Ladies In Waiting’, in support of marriage equality, appeared in the Archibald Prize exhibition.
via The Conversation
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