The word ‘historic’ tends to be uttered a lot in the marriage debate and was duly employed last week when the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly voted on a motion in favour of marriage equality in Australia.
This doesn’t mean Tasmanians can suddenly get married, just that a majority of the Tasmanian Lower House agrees our laws should be changed.
But there are no accusation of false inflation here. This is the first time any parliament in Australia has voted in principle for marriage equality, making it a historic moment in the campaign for same-sex marriage rights in this country.
Not quite as historic as enacting actual change, of course, but this is change of the attitudinal variety.
Tasmanian Green leader Nick McKim has vowed to enact state marriage legislation if the federal Government does not move further on the issue. This will certainly put further pressure on the outcome of Labor’s December National Conference.
Greens parties around Australia have vowed to follow Tasmania’s lead, but if those in state Labor branches are serious about changing the Marriage Act to allow for same-sex marriage, and they have all (except for the NSW branch) voted in favour of change, they do have the ability to push harder and stop abdicating to their federal colleagues.
Interestingly, as the debate goes on, the arguments opposing change seem to be getting more fanciful.
While Tasmanian Labor and Greens MPs got up one after the other to speak in favour of the Greens motion last week, Liberal Opposition leader Will Hodgman was the sole voice of the nine opposing MPs.
A weak opposition was mounted and he spent most of his time dismissing McKim’s motion as inconsequential, accusing the Greens of “grandstanding”.
A similar criticism was levelled at federal Greens MP Adam Bandt by Liberal counterpart Kelly O’Dwyer during the recent federal parliamentary report-back.
There’s no denying the Greens are pocketing political gains on this issue but it’s a stretch, at best, to accuse them of not genuinely pushing the cause to see actual change.
By choosing to play politics, Hodgman failed to mount a plausible argument on exactly why he is opposed to change and what impact allowing same-sex marriage would have.
He didn’t debate the issue so much as try to shut it down.
What Hodgman and others don’t seem to realise is people are noticing the ‘just ’cos’ argument for what it is. Grandstanding.
