Liberal MPs threaten leadership spill if anything happens on same-sex marriage
Image: Photo: Twitter via @TurnbullMalcolm
A GROUP of Liberal MPs are pushing to legislate marriage equality before the next election.
At least five have held discussions on framing legislation to force a resolution on same-sex marriage, according to The Australian.
Anonymous senior conservative MPs said marriage equality would become a leadership issue for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
“If anything occurs on gay marriage in the partyroom the next thing that will happen will be a spill motion—that day,” said one.
“And it doesn’t matter if it is endorsed by the PM or not.”
Turnbull, who supports marriage equality, yesterday ruled out a vote in this term of government, following leaked audio of Christopher Pyne saying policy change would be “sooner than everyone thinks”.
“We will not support a vote on gay marriage in the parliament until there has been a plebiscite,” said Turnbull.
A vote on marriage equality could be initiated in parliament via a suspension of standing orders, and would require an absolute majority on 76 votes to pass.
The legislation being considered includes exemptions for religious freedoms, allowing priests to refuse to conduct same-sex weddings, modelled on recommendations from a Senate report in February.
Some MPs yesterday re-endorsed the proposed non-compulsory postal vote plebiscite compromise that Peter Dutton proposed earlier this year.
Liberal National Party MP George Christenson backed the postal vote proposal but warned that ditching the plebiscite would bring the Coalition agreement with the Nationals into question.
“Quite obviously, [the plebiscite] is one of the key points in the agreement,” he said.
“If the Liberal party can no longer agree to that point of the agreement, the agreement needs to be renegotiated.”
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It’s ridiculous that the conservative right of the liberal party prefer to loose an election than representing all Australians. The Catholics amongst them are so hateful… Obviously they don’t follow the bibles teachings except for 1 verse… Hopefully, the Germans will show them up shortly.
I will quote Charlie Pickering here..
We are a bunch of worldwide dickheads and our politics reflects that sentiment…
Embarrassing people playing nasty games.
If I was the Governor-General under the Australian Consitution, I would immediately sack the whole 1 seat majority Turnbull LNP government and force a federal election within 30 days. The Australian community is over this issue. Get it done now! This will just drag on and on and on for years!
I would love to see a High Court challenge to the postal ballot. It’s unprecedented, it’s constitutionally meaningless, it’s a massive waste of money and it’s nothing more than a thinly veiled effort by the far right to chuck some public money at homophobes to have a few weeks of public gay-bashing before conceding defeat on the whole marriage equality issue. Peter Dutton refuses to move on marriage equality calling it a betrayal of an election promise but he wants to go ahead with a non-compulsory postal ballot despite never promising this at an election. What a massive failure of politics and logic by Peter Dutton. It’s the most idiotic move I’ve seen in ages. What pathetic, hypocritical homophobes they are proving themselves to be.