If you are sick to death of reading news and articles about marriage equality, your best chance to stop the news cycle is to help make sure that the ‘Yes’ vote gets up in the postal vote survey that is currently going on.
That’s because if a ‘No’ vote is returned, marriage equality is now officially going to become a much-talked-about issue in the next election, which will probably be held sometime in 2019.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today cemented this fate by confirming in an interview on 4BC that same-sex marriage will be completely off the table for his government at the next election if a ‘No’ vote is returned.
This would see his government rule out the option of taking it to parliament for the current term and also the following term, should he be returned as PM.
Okay then.
When asked if he agreed with Peter Dutton‘s statements that a ‘No’ vote should signal the end of the matter for the party, and that there would be no change to the Marriage Act, Turnbull was firm.
Absolutely, it’s very straightforward, if there is a ‘yes’ vote, then we’ll facilitate a private member’s bill to legalise same-sex marriage, and it there’s a ‘no’ vote, we won’t, that’s it, very straightforward. If the people have spoken against it, we won’t be proposing it at the next election I can assure you.
What a weird coincidence that Malcolm doesn’t seem to think a ‘Yes’ vote return should be binding, but is happy for a ‘No’ vote return to be binding for two terms. It’s almost like he’s trying to appease the right-wing members of his party or something, but what do I know.
On the other side, Bill Shorten has vowed to introduce a bill to bring in marriage equality if Labor wins the next election, even if a ‘No’ vote is returned. This has set marriage equality up as an issue that is not only important to a lot of Australians, but that marks a clear delineation between the parties.
It could become an issue that people prioritise as the main reason for their vote, and the choice is clear between one party who will refuse marriage equality, and one party who will establish marriage equality.
The safest route is for the ‘Yes’ vote to be returned, and a free vote to establish marriage equality. But if for some reason a ‘No’ vote wins, the next big fight will be removing Turnbull and his party from office, and getting marriage equality that way instead.
He’ll have brought this on himself.
