Coalition conscience vote on gay marriage not discussed despite millions of emails

Coalition conscience vote on gay marriage not discussed despite millions of emails

EXPECTATIONS that the federal Coalition would debate the issue of a conscience vote on marriage equality in today’s party room meeting has failed to deliver, despite the one million-plus emails sent yesterday to Liberal MPs advocating for it.

The news comes ahead of Thursday’s expected Senate debate on NSW Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm’s Freedom to Marry bill, and after the same Senate last week passed a motion by South Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young calling on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to grant a conscience vote.

In the lead-up to the 2013 election, Abbott said a conscience vote on marriage equality was something that would be left to the Coalition party room to decide should a bill be presented in Federal Parliament.

With the issue not brought up at all in the Coalition party room meeting today, Australian Marriage Equality (AME) has called on the government to set a timetable for when it will be granted.

“The government has missed an excellent opportunity to honour its pre-election promise and its own principles by allowing a free vote on marriage equality,” AME national director Rodney Croome said in a statement.

“It is has also ignored the 72 per cent of Australians who support marriage equality and the 1,773,088 emails sent to government members by supporters of marriage equality since Friday.

“Government MPs who went to the last election as supporters of marriage equality are being placed in an impossible position by a party that refuses to allow them to fulfil their commitment to voters.

“A marriage equality free vote is unfinished business. We call on the government to set a timetable for debate on a free vote so that Australians can have certainty on a reform we overwhelmingly support.”

Of the total emails calling for a free vote sent to 134 federal Coalition MPs since Friday, AME said 1,022,956 were sent at 12noon yesterday.

The organisation even avoided the risk of spamming email accounts by packaging the emails in PDFs so that it could be sent all at once to individual MP offices.

On the other hand, the Australian Christian Lobby has claimed that 20,000 people have sent 2,000,000 emails via its website ahead of Thursday’s Senate debate — all of which encouraged Coalition MPs to stick to the status quo and oppose the conscience vote.

Nonetheless, according to AME 13,232 individuals sent a total of 1,773,088 emails via the organisation’s free vote website.

In addition, AME has stated that 1217 calls have been made since February to the Equality Calling phone line that directs voice messages to an individual’s local MP and senator.

The sudden groundswell of advocacy in favour of marriage equality has reportedly led to 11 Liberal MPs privately switching to a pro-marriage equality stance since January.

So far, only a small group of federal Liberal MPs and senators have defied their party’s binding policy of opposing marriage equality by publicly declaring their support for it. These include Malcolm Turnbull, Arthur Sinodinos, Wyatt Roy, Teresa Gambaro, Simon Birmingham, Dean Smith and Kelly O’Dwyer.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has previously indicated she would have an “open mind” if she were given a conscience vote, while Treasurer Joe Hockey has suggested he supports a free vote.

The Labor party already has a free vote on marriage equality, and its deputy leader Tanya Plibersek has a draft bill “ready to go” once the the Coalition is granted one, too.

Meanwhile, the Greens is the only party that is in fully favour of marriage equality and has it as a binding policy.

However, without a conscience vote from the Coalition and due to unpredictable numbers of MPs from the two major parties in support of marriage equality, Leyonhjelm’s bill is doomed to fail.

The Freedom to Marry bill has been worded as such so that celebrants who object to same-sex marriage will not be forced to officiate at them — a provision which has concerned some LGBTI advocates who believe legislation should not allow discrimination in special circumstances.

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49 responses to “Coalition conscience vote on gay marriage not discussed despite millions of emails”

  1. Hi there,

    Can we STOP using gay as an umbrella term for LGBTI? It’s not “gay marriage” it’s marriage equality. Don’t dilute the term gay to mean bisexual, trans and intersex – because that’s offensive to everyone.

    Oh and it’s also LGBTI rights or QUILTBAG* rights or queer rights. Our community isn’t all gay, and suggesting that it is erases bisexuals, trans* and intersex people.

    QUILTBAG – queer, undecided, intersex, lesbian, trans*, bisexual, asexual, gay

  2. I fully support the fight for marriage equality, but on one grounds only: marriage is just about the only legal civil right gay folk are now denied in Oz. There is no sound reason to keep denying us that one significant right (which I maintain is a CIVIL right, not a human one).

    However, I’m damned if I understand why gay people, who for a long time were — and dare I suggest, enjoyed being — different, would want to adopt such a boring and unimaginative paradigm as western-style marriage with its official failure rate close to 50 per cent. With equal marriage must come equal divorce. I mean, W(hy)TF bother!

    I have always gloried in my difference. I reject the marriage model completely (been there and done it; survived the divorce)!

    But, on the grounds of legal total equality, I DO support the insistence on the right, and have done my bit of letter-writing and lobbying. I just think it’s misguided and poorly thought out.

  3. Chris of Sydney I admire your passion but try to hold it in check a bit if you can. Many of us older ones understand there is more to life than just being gay – and for years, even decades we had to still elect governments of either persuasion who had us criminalised. Not all of us are socialists- and when we vote we vote for whom we consider the lesser of the three evils. To many of us – that means we vote Liberal because they are fiscally far more capable than the alternative- despite some of their appalling old attitudes. That does not mean we are shameful. You may be tired of the fight for marriage equality- many of us had to start the fight when we were considered criminals. The fight goes on- but don’t blame the Liberal Party because within it there are many gay people and many people that support gay people and our causes.

  4. The campaign has falied because people here didn’t use their brains! Just take a long hard look at what they did in New Zealand and how they acheved marriage equality over a decade. We needed to be ‘clever’ and more devious than our Christian opponents and get civil unions introduced federally and then when the ‘right Government’ is elected with a pro-Marriage Equality PM in power, then go for it in totallity! The Protestants are far harder to fight than the Catholics in many countries.

    • The UK got their Civil Partnership Act in 2004 and then their Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act in 2013. One is a stepping-stone to the other and many Christians are not opposed to civil partnerships. Yet those who claim to represent our interests in Australia are vehemently opposed to any sort of civil partnership law.
      In 2004 Ireland got civil partnerships and on 22 May are having a referendum on marriage; another remedy being denied us in Australia by those-who-think-they-know-better.

  5. He definitely part lizard lol.

    Anyway Australia needs to be different it has been before(but sadly that’s even dying, due to our country has allowed itself to be americanised)

    For example that needs to change in this country is its Government.

    Technocracy Government should replace our rather f**ked up out dated government.

    If you don’t know what technocracy means, I’m sure that you are capable of finding the definition on the internet.

    Further more my comment may or may not have relation to the article.

  6. He definitely part lizard lol.

    Anyway Australia needs to be different it has been before(but sadly that’s even dying, due to our country has allowed itself to be americanised)

    For example that needs to change in this country is its Government.

    Technocracy Government should replace our rather f**ked up out dated government.

    If you don’t know what technocracy means, I’m sure that you are capable of finding the definition on the internet.

  7. Still banning same-sex marriage?
    Thats NOTHING compared with what Tony Abbott actually did back in 2014. Tony loves to duck and hide things. Such as suppress very important issues such as corruption and bribery in our very own Government – also other disclosures of the public interest!

  8. Love it how we quickly move to follow the UK when they introduce laws imposing penalties on people who download movies, protecting big business, but drag the chain on following the UK on something as fundamental as the right to marry the person you love.

  9. Leyonhjelm is no ones friend unless you are a Laissez-faire capitalist. Give this man and his party no power, no influence, and no light of day. This man and his party would dismantle every institution and protection we hold dear in this country. The ideas the Liberal Democrats champion are dangerous and destructive to our fair-go nation.

    • You didn’t get the memo?
      This is about marriage.
      We have to don the twin-set and pearls. Be on our best behaviour and not frighten the horses because the nice, honourable government won’t give us our conformity – oops, I mean equality – unless we conform.
      Did I just contradict myself there?
      Maybe Reverend Fred Nile can marry us. He just recently got married for the second time. We could throw him our bouquet…. after we set fire to it.
      Thus we’d be protesting to the people we are equal to.
      Is that what they call a win/win?

  10. This was never going to be discussed before the Nsw election on Saturday. It’s important to abbott’s survival that Baird win and he won’t risk alienating anyone this week.

  11. I’m not surprised, they are in there to line their pockets, not deliver promises and definately not to help people. They are stealing out of peoples bank accounts and their superannuation

  12. Shame on those within the GLBTI community who voted Liberal . Thanks for rewarding our oppressors . Australia is the social pariah of the western world.

  13. Can I add I’m sick of hearing “be positive and things will eventually change” – We have been waiting for over 10 years since the campaign begun – after all this is a human right! Get with it Australian politicians – and quickly.

    • Yes, over ten years. What was happening before then? It’s like no one knew or cared about marriage till the government said we couldn’t do it. The age-of-entitlement is represented by political amateurs.

      And sorry, but human rights are things like healthcare, education, housing, fresh food and water… You know, things that affect ALL humans. Same-sex marriage is a First World iinvention affecting a negligible number of people.

      • Barrie , you may have been a ‘johnny come lately ‘ on the issue of marriage equality but I can assure you plenty of others were not . You also do not get to define ‘ human rights ‘ All men and women are born equal and equality includes the right to marry the person they love if they choose to do so .

        • Why do people talk about equality as if it’s meant to be the natural order of things? The fact it has to be defined and upheld by law shows there’s nothing natural about it at all.

  14. Tony Abbott and his Liberal government is nothing short of just scum of the earth in continually BLOCKING a conscience vote of simple marriage equality in our supposedly free and democratic Australian Parliament! And on top of all that, then he has the nerve to continually blame the Australian Senate in BLOCKING his Government agenda on bills on migration/immigration reform, social security reform, taxation reform and university deregulation!

  15. Wow we can pass laws for the UK (PASSED the Succession of the Crown Bill)! But we as Australians can not pass a law on marriage equality (Freedom to Marry Bill has FAILED)!

  16. Yes tony im blessing in discuise i died when i was 11 now im 47 ive come to haunt u straights it apears u straight are more interested on picking on homosexual still wake up tony u all need us homosexual look au all the ones that work for u tony

  17. When the gay right organizations and the gays will realize that such campaigns are not working. We have been trying similar campaigns for years, haven’t made any progress. How hard is it for us to take the fight back onto the street, protest and rally?
    All these love and reasoning seems so sloppy, they have zero effect on these bigots.

    • Rallies do nought. It’s only when MPs think they are going to lose their seat in parliament (their job) that they start to care. Why would a western Sydney mp care about marriage equality if she thinks there aren’t enough gay peple in her western Sydney electorate to make a difference to her fortunes.

      Notice how inner city ploticians go on about marriage equality all the time, but never actually do anything about it? Cause they want the votes of the gays, but still know it doesn’t make that much difference to their jobs.

      Rallies mean nothing because politicians assume its the same inner city queens protesting all the time.

    • As someone who isn’t an inner city queen that has helped organise these rallies, I can tell you that rallies DO work. You only have to look at the history of the gay liberation movement. How was homosexuality decriminalised, and the first HIV drug (AZT) legalised, even in the face of massive scare campaigns running in the mainstream press, accusing homosexual men of being “blood donation terrorists”? Not through lobbying a Liberal government, I can tell you that.

    • I think we should have rallies everywhere mobilize people including the major cities and smaller cities.
      Two years ago, we organized 2 rallies in manly, it was good and fan.

    • Fahad, protests from the 80s & 90s aren’t quite current trends.

      Labour marriage equality platform changes because of the internal lobbying, not the rallies.

  18. In the national anthem it says “For we are young and free”. Where is the freedome if we cant marry who we love. Its just crap. Maybe its time for a new anthem to.

  19. I know we must stay positive, but it’s a disgrace that in this “progressive” country we are still begging to even get this heard :-(

  20. Firstly the gay community pleaded with Senator Leyonhjelm not to introduce the bill at this time.

    Secondly the bill in its current form is a disgrace and should be refused as it holds the right of non-religious celebrants the right to discriminate.

    So I am thinking its a blessing.