A Government Backpedalling
It was no surprise at all that within days of scraping back into government, the Coalition began to back away further from any action towards equality for same sex couples. No surprise, but an interesting choice. They could have perhaps started to work towards regaining some electoral support from moderate voters who left them in droves leading to the almost fatal blow to Malcolm Turnbull’s brand (like many, I will be surprised if he leads the party to the next election).
Nope, not this Coalition. Spurred on by the nationals and raving zealots like Bernardi and Abbott (who never worried about moderate supporters to begin with), the government seems poised to lurch further away from widespread community expectations of responsible governance in areas such as economic management, climate policy and marriage equality.
Unsurprisingly, the fate of the controversial non-binding plebiscite remains clouded. There is certainly no sign of Turnbull growing a spine and bringing reform to parliament directly, but the timeline for the plebiscite seems to be stretching further and further into the future. I shake my head slightly despairingly, but I actually don’t know whether to be upset about this or not.
160 million dollars sounds like a lot, but the costs continue to blow out too. Earlier this year, a PwC report found the true cost of the plebiscite to be over half a billion dollars, allowing for a number of secondary costs. At time of writing this, George Brandis is considering a motion to provide millions of dollars to public campaigns for both campaigns. Regardless of my pretty obvious views on the plebiscite itself, I am concerned that the government would consider giving any taxpayer dollars to anyone that wants to push their own agenda- for or against- onto the public.
The (un)Australian (un)Christian Lobby have also asked to be exempted from hate speech laws in order to properly articulate their arguments against marriage equality. This position is every bit as ludicrous as it sounds- summed up perfectly in this short video by Charlie Pickering.
I have actually tried to fairly consider all arguments against marriage equality and few are even logically coherent, let alone persuasive. But this point aside, I can’t see how relaxing anti-discrimination laws would enhance any of these arguments unless you also relax libel laws and truth in advertising laws. Essentially, the ACL would need to be able to tell whatever lies they want without fear of any repercussions if it wanted to make a persuasive case. But considering Brandis is on record saying people have a right to be bigots and prominent Morrison, Abbott and Bernardi overtly support ultra conservative Christian groups, it wouldn’t surprise me to even see this appalling proposal somehow enacted.
So if this plebiscite ever actually goes ahead, it looks set to be hurtful and expensive. It obviously won’t affect me directly, but since I am not a sociopath I have some empathy. And that means I am going to vicariously experience some of the frustration hurt and despair that many Australians including a number of my friends will feel as a result of hateful public rhetoric.
If the Coalition is going to continue to stall the plebiscite, I also have concerns at the wording and mechanics they will choose when they finally enact it. Given there are many people in the party who still (somehow) wield a lot of internal power that are rabid opponents of Marriage Equality, I expect them to take every chance they can to make it hard for the plebiscite to return a ‘Yes’ vote- and for the Prime Minister to do next to nothing to resist them.
Considering there is no indication from the government that they would actually respect the result of the plebiscite anyway. I start to wonder, do I even want it to happen in the 45th parliament? I cringe saying it, because I think the Marriage Act should have been changed already. However, I am depressingly confident that this government will underperform as badly as it did in its first term and by the next election the reality of their incompetence, cronyism and hypocrisy will be pretty clear. I don’t see them making any improvement to their performance on climate or social policies so the only way the Coalition will avoid a loss at the next election would be to improve their economic performance (unlikely) or for the public to buy more of their lies and broken promises for the third election in a row (sadly still possible if the climate of fear over terrorism still exists).
While it is a long way off, at this stage I am cautiously optimistic that there is some chance we could see a further weakening of the LNP support base as they continue to fail the nation over the next three years, leading to defeat at the next election. So can the Marriage Equality question wait until then? I wish it didn’t have to but, I have little doubt that an ALP government would legislate without need for the plebiscite and given the elongated timeline, the Coalition will probably impose, I don’t see them actually making legislative change much before the 46th parliament sits anyway.
Of course I make this observation from a disconnected perspective of someone not directly affected by Marriage Equality legislation. Obviously I will be affected as I will benefit from living in a more just and equitable society, but my day to day life I won’t be impacted, so it is easier for me to take a long view of things. I recognise my views may not be shared by those who are desperately waiting for legislative change because of its effect on them personally. It saddens me that they have to wait at all.
Nope, not this Coalition. Spurred on by the nationals and raving zealots like Bernardi and Abbott (who never worried about moderate supporters to begin with), the government seems poised to lurch further away from widespread community expectations of responsible governance in areas such as economic management, climate policy and marriage equality.
Unsurprisingly, the fate of the controversial non-binding plebiscite remains clouded. There is certainly no sign of Turnbull growing a spine and bringing reform to parliament directly, but the timeline for the plebiscite seems to be stretching further and further into the future. I shake my head slightly despairingly, but I actually don’t know whether to be upset about this or not.
160 million dollars sounds like a lot, but the costs continue to blow out too. Earlier this year, a PwC report found the true cost of the plebiscite to be over half a billion dollars, allowing for a number of secondary costs. At time of writing this, George Brandis is considering a motion to provide millions of dollars to public campaigns for both campaigns. Regardless of my pretty obvious views on the plebiscite itself, I am concerned that the government would consider giving any taxpayer dollars to anyone that wants to push their own agenda- for or against- onto the public.
The (un)Australian (un)Christian Lobby have also asked to be exempted from hate speech laws in order to properly articulate their arguments against marriage equality. This position is every bit as ludicrous as it sounds- summed up perfectly in this short video by Charlie Pickering.
I have actually tried to fairly consider all arguments against marriage equality and few are even logically coherent, let alone persuasive. But this point aside, I can’t see how relaxing anti-discrimination laws would enhance any of these arguments unless you also relax libel laws and truth in advertising laws. Essentially, the ACL would need to be able to tell whatever lies they want without fear of any repercussions if it wanted to make a persuasive case. But considering Brandis is on record saying people have a right to be bigots and prominent Morrison, Abbott and Bernardi overtly support ultra conservative Christian groups, it wouldn’t surprise me to even see this appalling proposal somehow enacted.
So if this plebiscite ever actually goes ahead, it looks set to be hurtful and expensive. It obviously won’t affect me directly, but since I am not a sociopath I have some empathy. And that means I am going to vicariously experience some of the frustration hurt and despair that many Australians including a number of my friends will feel as a result of hateful public rhetoric.
If the Coalition is going to continue to stall the plebiscite, I also have concerns at the wording and mechanics they will choose when they finally enact it. Given there are many people in the party who still (somehow) wield a lot of internal power that are rabid opponents of Marriage Equality, I expect them to take every chance they can to make it hard for the plebiscite to return a ‘Yes’ vote- and for the Prime Minister to do next to nothing to resist them.
Considering there is no indication from the government that they would actually respect the result of the plebiscite anyway. I start to wonder, do I even want it to happen in the 45th parliament? I cringe saying it, because I think the Marriage Act should have been changed already. However, I am depressingly confident that this government will underperform as badly as it did in its first term and by the next election the reality of their incompetence, cronyism and hypocrisy will be pretty clear. I don’t see them making any improvement to their performance on climate or social policies so the only way the Coalition will avoid a loss at the next election would be to improve their economic performance (unlikely) or for the public to buy more of their lies and broken promises for the third election in a row (sadly still possible if the climate of fear over terrorism still exists).
While it is a long way off, at this stage I am cautiously optimistic that there is some chance we could see a further weakening of the LNP support base as they continue to fail the nation over the next three years, leading to defeat at the next election. So can the Marriage Equality question wait until then? I wish it didn’t have to but, I have little doubt that an ALP government would legislate without need for the plebiscite and given the elongated timeline, the Coalition will probably impose, I don’t see them actually making legislative change much before the 46th parliament sits anyway.
Of course I make this observation from a disconnected perspective of someone not directly affected by Marriage Equality legislation. Obviously I will be affected as I will benefit from living in a more just and equitable society, but my day to day life I won’t be impacted, so it is easier for me to take a long view of things. I recognise my views may not be shared by those who are desperately waiting for legislative change because of its effect on them personally. It saddens me that they have to wait at all.