Fact: There is one thing standing in the way of same sex marriage in Australia, and one thing only.
Malcolm Turnbull.
Australia could have legal same sex marriage this week if Malcolm Turnbull was willing, and here’s why.
Right now, there are a majority of pro-same sex marriage politicians in the Australian parliament, and there are two marriage equality bills currently being considered by the Parliament, one authored by the ALP and the other by the Greens.
But the pro-same sex marriage politicians from the Coalition are not allowed to vote in favour of marriage equality because the Liberal and National Party will not give their MPs and Senators a free vote in the parliament. Therefore, both of those bills will fail to pass.
Instead, Malcolm Turnbull is proposing a plebiscite; that is, the Government will ask the Australian public to vote on the question of legalising same sex marriage.
In order to have a plebiscite, the parliament will need to pass legislation through the House of Representatives and the Senate to get one. Currently, there’s no guarantee that legislation will pass, as the Greens and a number of Senate crossbenchers have indicated they will block it.
Bill Shorten labelled the plebiscite a glorified opinion poll in a press conference earlier today.
“Our concern is … the emotional torment of a teenager grappling with their sexual identity, is that really worth having this government opinion poll for? Is it really worth some of the evidence that we’ve seen of the experiences of hate and homophobia which this debate, this government opinion poll would licence?” he said.