Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Science) Share this | Hansard source

On Monday, 10 September 2012, I rose in this chamber to be one of the 42 to give a speech in favour of the then Jones bill for marriage equality, and I'm very glad that I did. I have to say that that debate felt very different from this debate. It felt different because the parliament was acting as it should—as the proper vehicle for changes in law and for advancements of people's rights. This debate should have taken place here and this law should have been enacted by this parliament—and should have been enacted by this parliament some time ago.

I'll talk a bit about the postal survey a little later on. I just want to reiterate the reasons why I voted in favour of marriage equality. I'll be plain, my speech in that debate wasn't the best one I had ever made but I think it was one of the most important. My sister had convinced me over some time, during many arguments over the kitchen table, to back in marriage equality. As we know, in 2012 electorally it was a different time and place and, once I had become convinced, holding fast to that conviction was an important thing to do. I think that is the way members of parliament should conduct themselves. You feel much better about yourself if you hold true to your convictions once you arrive at them. You do that over the course of deliberation, talking to constituents and to friends and family. But, in the end, a representative in this parliament should make up their own mind and should hold to it, no matter what the electoral consequences.

Many members have referred to the postal ballot, and I want to talk mostly about the process, because the arguments have been made. This debate feels very different because we've had such an elongated debate. Most of the arguments to and fro have been made and have been done to death, but this debate should have been a conscience debate where you saw the best of members of parliament, where you saw the best speeches, where people listened to the speeches and where we didn't have empty galleries late at night. It should have been a debate full of passion and fury, and that passion and fury should not have been pushed into the community.

The parliament and representative democracy is a very old and important construct. In my speech in 2012, I referred to Edmund Burke, who was one of the founding architects of parliamentary democracy and modern conservatism, at least for the moment. The problem with the government's postal ballot was that it departed from that in such a dangerous way. If we can grant rights through referendum, what is to stop a government in the future from taking rights away through popular appeal? What is there to stop a desperate Prime Minister, say, appealing to public opinion about the death penalty or, conversely, about euthanasia or any one of the myriad other issues on which there are strong and passionate convictions in the community? It is a very dangerous thing that the government has done and has forced the country into.

I am pleased that my party and the leader of my party campaigned so strongly in the referendum and helped to make this a success, and I thank all of those in the 'yes' campaign and all of the people who have been brave enough to stand up. They've been thanked many times in many speeches in this House.

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