Australia: Turnbull Error - supporting Homosexual Marriage

The high stakes game of politics over same-sex marriage is now dangerous and unpredictable with the main question being: will the champions of change kill off the Coalition’s plebiscite, thereby denying the main hope of reform in this parliament?

That would be a strange and self-defeating step. The tactical and moral issue is immense — it is whether the advocates of same-sex marriage put the means before the end and are so fiercely opposed to a plebiscite that they reject the mandate Malcolm Turnbull won at the election.

If parliament votes against the plebiscite bill the pivotal question becomes the assumption on which it acts. Does it act on the honest, upfront admission that, more likely than not, it means same-sex marriage will be delayed for another three years?

Former High Court judge Michael Kirby is prepared to accept this price. Indeed, he wrote on this page it is better “that nothing at all were done by the federal parliament on same-sex marriage than that a plebiscite was undertaken with a possibility of defeat”.

That is an admirable but extreme minority position. Kirby puts a cogent case that a plebiscite is a core breach of our parliamentary system and he fears, given Australia’s dismal referendum history and the failure of the only relevant precedents, the 1916 and 1917 conscription plebiscites, that the same-sex plebiscite is likely to be defeated as well.

The reality, however, is that if parliament kills the plebiscite option the same-sex marriage advocates will not be as philosophical as Kirby — just the reverse. They will insist Turnbull abandon his lost plebiscite position and proceed to legislate the issue on a conscience vote in parliament.

Nothing is more certain than the same-sex marriage lobby would hold Turnbull responsible if he failed to recant and redirect his government behind this reversed position. The “blame game” politics would be shrill and vicious. Turnbull would be traduced as a coward who failed to honour his in-principle support for same-sex marriage and who sheltered behind the defeated notion of a plebiscite he never wanted to excuse his weakness. The damage to Turnbull in this event could be significant.

Yet such claims would be fraudulent, dishonest and a transparent project in accountability denial. If the same-sex marriage champions kill off the plebiscite then they are responsible for the consequences, not Turnbull, not the Coalition.

Turnbull has been upfront. Having inherited in 2015 Tony Abbott’s plebiscite that he disliked, Turnbull took the sensible course — rather than drive his leadership into instant divisive ruins, he put the plebiscite to the people at the election, rejected Labor’s demand for a parliamentary vote, said the plebiscite would be mounted as soon as practicable post-election and pledged the wishes of the people would be honoured in the subsequent parliamentary vote.

Claims the plebiscite is useless because Turnbull has not got iron clad pledges from all his MPs to honour the vote are pure propaganda and media fabrication. The entire cabinet knows the plebiscite will be honoured and the ideological conservatives cannot summon the numbers to halt that.

The truth is Turnbull supports same-sex marriage. If parliament approves, the plebiscite will be held in the first half of 2017 after advice from the Australian Electoral Commission that late this year is not really feasible. The hypocrisy surrounding this issue is almost beyond belief — Turnbull is wrongly accused of wanting to delay the plebiscite by some of the very people who want to vote down the plebiscite!

Lawyer and priest Frank Brennan, who has always argued the issue should properly be decided by parliament, told this column: “Contrary to Justice Kirby I have urged proponents of same-sex marriage to support legislation for a plebiscite because there is no other way that the matter can be resolved during the life of this parliament with Malcolm Turnbull remaining as Prime Minister.”

It makes sense for same-sex marriage advocates to vote against the plebiscite if they fear it might fail, fear the Brexit syndrome and don’t believe their propaganda over many years that the public has made up its mind. It also makes sense for such advocates to vote against the plebiscite if they believe it would do unacceptable harm to sections of the LGBTI community or cause deaths, as advocates now claim.

In this context Bill Shorten has put the stamp of moral unacceptability on the plebiscite, calling it “a taxpayer-funded platform for homophobia” — the line Shorten repeatedly used in the campaign. This was not just a critique. It was a moral condemnation that allows no competing argument for Shorten to change his mind without being a hypocrite who trades in moral absolutes for electoral convenience.

Labor faces its own dilemma because of its reckless campaign overreach. If it votes against the plebiscite it risks dooming its cherished cause for another three years. How crazy is that? But if it votes for the plebiscite it is ­exposed as a party of moral ­hypocrites.

It further makes sense for advocates to vote against the plebiscite if, like Kirby, they feel it is a betrayal of our system of government. For instance, shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus told this column the same-sex marriage plebiscite would set “an appalling precedent”, reinforcing the Kirby argument. “Effectively this would be the start of the slippery slope towards citizens-initiated referenda,” Dreyfus said. “We have never governed ourselves in this way.”

This argument has force. It is not hard to imagine elements of the Left and Right might advance a plebiscite proposal to resolve issues such as euthanasia or restrictions on Islam. It would be folly for Australia to take this path.

There is, however, a fraudulent ground on which to vote down the plebiscite — telling people they can both ditch the plebiscite and still have Turnbull authorise a parliamentary vote. That is something else — it is playing politics with same-sex marriage.

If Turnbull’s opponents believe they can kill the plebiscite plus get a parliamentary vote, then that is their gamble, their responsibility, their risk. If they encourage people to believe this, the onus is on their heads and their conscience, nobody else. They might be proved right and Turnbull might succumb, but that is a mighty gamble.

Understand, however, what this would involve.

It means Turnbull would reverse his position at the behest of the Senate. He would buckle under public pressure from his opponents. He would breach the commitment he took to the election. He would abandon the plebiscite formula that kept a divided Coalition together before and during the election. He would invite a declaration of political war from the Liberal conservatives. He would alienate the Nationals, and if the plebiscite is part of the secret written Coalition agreement, he would risk breaching that agreement. Finally, he would be expected to authorise a conscience vote for Coalition MPs when Labor has already abandoned a conscience vote beyond the 2019 election.

There are two ways of looking at such difficulties. They reveal how diabolical Turnbull’s situation would be after the rejection of a plebiscite bill. Yet they also reveal the extent of temptation for his opponents to defeat the bill, play politics with same-sex marriage and destabilise a fragile government. In short, there are both valid and unscrupulous reasons for knocking out the plebiscite.

A responsible parliament will vote the plebiscite bill. This is because it is the government’s only declared means to resolve the issue and the government was re-elected. It is not because the plebiscite will be trouble free — the campaign will be divisive and both sides fused with moral tribalism. In sorting out the plebiscite the cabinet needs to grasp the imperative for religious freedom in a same-sex marriage world — unless this is guaranteed then get ready for a plebiscite that is bitter, wild and unpredictable.