Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

During the previous parliament, the 44th Parliament, some members of the Liberal and National parties thought it was a very canny move to promise a plebiscite during this parliament. I suppose for some of them it was an attempt to push it into the future, far enough away that they did not have to worry about it—and, hopefully, if the plebiscite occurred they might be able to win the argument that there should not be marriage equality in this country. I do not doubt that during this parliament, now that the proposed plebiscite legislation has been voted down, there would be some members of the Liberal and National parties who would be thinking that is a very canny development as well—that now the whole matter has been pushed off even further into the future, something for a future government in a future parliament to address.

I suggest that the judgement by those members of the Liberal and National parties is flawed, because the result of that strategy by the Liberal and National parties has been, in effect, to squeeze every last bit of political heartache and political misery out of the issue. The fact is that a great many people in this country want the 2004 amendment to the Marriage Act overturned. They want Australia to join all other developed countries by allowing two men, if they love each other, to marry, or two women, if they love each other, to marry. But, no, what these members of the Liberal and National parties have hoped to do is push it into the future. I make the point again: they have squeezed every last bit of political misery and heartache out of the issue.

People just want this dealt with. They just want it over. The big majority of the community is, frankly, sick and tired of the ongoing discussion and debate about marriage equality in this country. Yes, there is a significant group of people who oppose marriage equality and there is a very significant group of people who are in favour of marriage, and there is an enormous number of people who are not all that fussed; they just want the matter dealt with. They just want people like ourselves and other members and senators to move onto other issues—to deal with this now, in the chamber.

We are a representative democracy. We are not a participatory democracy. It is our job. We were all elected to represent our community. We were all elected with our communities knowing what we stood for and what our positions were on a broad range of issues, including marriage equality. In Denison, in Melbourne and in Indi, everybody knew that we stood for equality. We all stood for an end to the legislative discrimination in the Marriage Act and that if we were elected we would come to this place and do what we could to ensure that marriage equality was finally achieved in this country and that finally we would become an equal with all other developed countries, because all of them have already embraced marriage equality.

Unfortunately there is this ongoing narrative that if the Liberal and National parties were to now support a vote in this parliament, it would somehow be the end of the Prime Minister. That is just not the case. Prime Minister Turnbull, to his credit, was true to his word by doing everything he humanly could to ensure a plebiscite occurred. Well, the plebiscite is now not going to occur despite the Prime Minister's best efforts, so the situation has changed and that demands a different policy response from the government and from the Prime Minister. In fact, by bringing this matter into the parliament, voting on it and dealing with it once and for all, it may well be the saviour of the Prime Minister because that will be the end of the matter and we will not spend the next two years debating it. We will not spend the next two years asking questions of the Prime Minister and of the members of the Liberal and National parties; we will actually spend two years addressing other issues, two years talking about how we re-engineer the budget, how we end disadvantage in this country and how we have an even better foreign security policy—that is what we would be focusing on. The decision in this place, perhaps as early as this week or next week, will have been lost in history. It may well be the saviour of the Prime Minister.

I call on the government and I call on the members of the Liberal and National parties to understand that the vast majority of people in this country just want this matter dealt with and dealt with in this parliament. It can be dealt with in this parliament decisively if we were to debate, to vote and to decide on the cross-party bill that is before the House at the moment, which would bring about marriage equality. (Time expired)

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