Although Andrew Street1 thinks the ‘idea’ of the postal plebiscite on same sex marriage is designed to: 1. Skew the result in the direction the religious right wing nut jobs (RRWNJs) want (i.e. to reject it), by appealing most to older people; 2. Allow Australia Post to be blamed if the result goes against what the RRWNJs want, even to the extent of screaming fraud; 3. Make it voluntary and bothersome to complete; 4. Make it easy to dispute the result; I think it is more than that.
It is hard to imagine the mentality of the shifty little RRWNJ whose thought bubble this was, but I don’t think it has anything to do with getting same sex marriage done and dusted. The RRWNJs are against that no matter what, and they will use any tactic to confuse and delay the issue. After all, that is what Abbott’s plebiscite was all about in the first place2. The added bonus for the RRWNJs is that it makes it clear that they still have Turnbull in a squirrel grip, which he seemed to momentarily loosen when he pranced about Tumut 3 pretending he was a Nation-building Prime Minister while announcing the possibility of having a feasibility study into whether it was reasonable to have an increase in the power generation of the Snowy Mountains Scheme and whether it was possible to have pumped hydro storage as well3.
The RRWNJs were aghast that Turnbull would have the audacity to do something non-coal like Snowy 2.0, so they needed to give him a good kicking by way of making him look ridiculous. A postal plebiscite will certainly do that. It is also a way to make it clear that the squirrel grip is back on.
Sources
Another pointless episode of kite flying. The buffoon Dutton has exposed himself yet again, apparently without realising it. He made the point that a non-binding, voluntary postal vote would be a way of delivering on their pre-election promise. To hell with resolving a serious issue like informed and rational adults, and to hell with politicians taking responsibility as has been done in many countries including New Zealand. The one and only important thing in the warped mind of Peter Dutton is that the Coalition can cross off one of its commitments and have complete control of the process. A realist might question Dutton’s motives because he would surely suspect that thousands of people would choose not to vote in any such poll either because they were apathetic towards the issue of same sex marriage or because they rejected out of hand this childish approach to resolving the issue. Count me in as one of the latter.
And here’s the irony/hypocrisy. Even if the Turnbull government had succeeded in getting the ridiculously expensive and unnecessary plebiscite through parliament they gave no guarantees that they would abide by the decision of the people. Incomprehensibly it has also been suggested that following the now thankfully defunct plebiscite Coalition members would have been given freedom to vote according to their consciences – the very same freedom which has been denied them all along, and which could have resolved the issue on the floor of the house long ago.
I have absolutely no intention of voting on any plebiscite, especially one thought up by a potato. It could all be sorted out by tomorrow if these cretins had any integrity.