When asked if there would be a free vote in parliament if the postal plebiscite is struck down by the High Court, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stated: “Our policy is very clear. We will not facilitate the introduction of a private members’ bill on this matter unless the Australian people have given their support through a ‘yes’ vote through this national vote that we are now undertaking”1. While it is clear that this is a ham-fisted attempt to blackmail as many people as possible to vote in this idiotic, voluntary, non-binding plebiscite, it will probably be circumvented by Warren Entsch’s reserving of his right to cross the floor to bring on a same-sex marriage debate. Others of the five who forced the Liberal Party to revisit this issue would not be drawn to make a comment.
Still some of the government ministers try to lay the blame on the Labor Party for stalling the same-sex marriage process. The smirking George Brandis, clearly knowing he was spouting rubbish, blamed everybody but the liberals for the debacle, indicating that: ‘This issue is so intimate, so personal that it is uniquely a cause for a plebiscite’2. That is just another despicable lie. This wasn’t the case when Howard changed the Marriage Act in 2004 solely to prevent same-sex marriage and the to prevent the recognition of same-sex couples married overseas. The clearly embarrassed Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, has also blamed the Labor Party for the Liberal debacle stating that it was they who forced this delay in resolving the issue3. I have been following Australian politics for 40 years now and I have rarely seen such disingenuousness. An analogy to this would be the hijacker of an aircraft blaming the crew for not stopping him. However, in reality, Turnbull is not the hijacker, that is Tony Abbott. Turnbull is just another passenger, asleep in first class.
Sources
- https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2017/aug/10/liberal-party-marriage-equality-labor-shorten-turnbull-politics-live
- http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-08/same-sex-marriage-pm-moves-to-hold-postal-plebiscite-vote/8784822
- https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/julie-bishop-says-that-labor-is-to-blame-for-the-delay-in-resolving-the-same-sex-marriage-debate/vp-AApNmm9
