Turns out that Malcolm Turnbull‘s same-sex marriage plebiscite, which will put the issue of equal marriage to the people as a way of delaying it and satisfying the hard rightwing of the Coalition, is gonna set Australia back to the tune of $500 million. That’s no small bit of pocket change, hey?
Accounting consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has done the modelling, and reckons that the plebiscite itself will cost $158 million to stage, around $66 million to publicly fund both the for and against campaigns, and will slam the country to the tune of $281 million in lost productivity, when everyone leaves the office to vote for something we should probably already have anyway.
Bummer.
PwC chief executive Luke Sayers pulled no punches. Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald, he called the plebiscite “a massive waste of time and money, that will remove focus on the economy, growth, and jobs, which is the real priority for Australia”.
The plebiscite was the brainchild of former prime minister Tony Abbott – known for his pretty aggressive opposition to same-sex marriage – and was continued by Turnbull, who ostensibly supports marriage equality but isn’t keen on annoying the conservatives in his party.
So maybe tuck this one away for next time we get a lecture from Cory Bernardi about freeing up the economy and the importance of budget responsibility and living within our means.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald.
Image: Getty Images / Stefan Postles.
