Coalition MPs accused of betrayal after compromising on Smith’s marriage bill

Coalition MPs accused of betrayal after compromising on Smith’s marriage bill
Image: Image: Andy Miller.

Three assistant ministers have accused their moderate colleagues of “betrayal” over compromising on promised protections for parental rights and religious freedom, as marriage equality comes closer to being passed.

With Dean Smith’s marriage reform bill set to pass the Senate this week, Angus Taylor, Michael Sukkar and Zed Seselja have called for the bill not to be supported without additional religious protections, according to The Australian.

“Dean Smith, Tim Wilson and others have argued that this change is best done by a Coalition government, because we can be relied on to protect freedoms,” said Taylor.

“It’s now the job of Coalition members to live up to that promise. I for one will support protections for free speech, parental choice for their kids’ education and freedom of religion. I hope others will do the same.”

Seselja said supporting the bill without those protections would be “a betrayal” of both Yes and No voters.

“Dean Smith and Tim Wilson and others assured Coalition voters that getting same sex-marriage with a Coalition government would deliver much stronger protections, yet the Smith bill has been embraced by the Greens,” said Seselja.

“We owe it to our supporters who voted both Yes and No to ensure that we deliver much stronger protections than a Green/Labor bill would.”

Smith responded that the details of the bill were well publicised prior to the marriage equality survey, and the overwhelming Yes vote suggested Australians were happy with it.

“An equally valid interpretation of the result is to conclude Yes voters were not only ready to embrace marriage equality but are also satisfied protections for religious views in Australia’s legal architecture are already sufficient,” he said.

“For months the opponents of marriage equality have argued the case for broader religious freedoms but have failed to substantiate their claims with clear evidence existing religious freedoms in Australia’s various laws are insufficient.”

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4 responses to “Coalition MPs accused of betrayal after compromising on Smith’s marriage bill”

    • The beauty of it is that the High Court has now set a precedent for a future Labor-Greens government to hold an online-only “statistical survey” without even running it through Parliament first. Believe me, I’m a South Australian watching a state Labor government squirm and desperately hope that all will work out in the end. They’d run a distraction tactic like a controversial statistical survey in a flash if they could get away with it.

      When churches pay tax the Tories will blame this survey (ironically they’ll blame Turnbull) but they should blame Lyle Shelton.

  1. Nearly to the finish line! We can do it Australia! Let’s get this SSM shit done!

  2. I urge the media including the Star Observer to actually examine the bills that are being proposed by the hard-right and not just report what’s being said in press releases.

    I found it very interesting to read Senator Patterson’s bill following his claims that it was to allow for “religious freedom” and for religious people to make “decisions of conscience” and found his bill did very little for anyone’s religious freedom other than to say no to marrying same sex couples. His claims were bullshit. He withdrew his bill when people realised this.

    Similarly, the only plan which is currently on the table from the far right is to insert some legally dubious motherhood statements into the Marriage Act which make no specific changes but might open up a lawyer’s picnic in the future if anyone tries to use them to do something homophobic. Why would they do this? It’s because THEY ACTUALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS THEY ARE TRYING TO PROTECT. And they don’t want to be pinned down on any either.

    Eric Abetz has recently stated that if they’re going to be fair dinkum about religious freedom then this has to be comprehensive and allow discrimination against divorcees by Catholics, against Muslims by Jews and against straights by gays. I think he’s right that this is what religious freedom would actually mean. The trio of dickheads in this article don’t seem to agree with Abetz though.

    So come on journo’s, do the hard work of reading through the bill and not just the press release and don’t swallow this crap about “religious freedom” without actually asking what freedoms are allowed or not allowed under these fools’ plan.