Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately over the course of this week, we've seen yet another shambles from the Turnbull government, a government that is becoming very well known for the shambles that it creates every time it turns its hand to any form of policy. We're seeing it on energy policy, we're seeing it on housing affordability policy, we're seeing it on education—whether it be higher education or schools—policy and we're seeing it on employment policy. Everything it touches becomes a shambles. There is no difference with the marriage equality debate, where it's happening again, but, sadly, this is a debate in which the shambles the government is creating is going to see a lot of innocent people get very badly hurt.

Now, we know from opinion poll after opinion poll that the vast majority of Australians—I think it's in the order of 70 per cent—support marriage equality and just want to see it get done. We all know how polarised the political debate in our country has become about so many different issues over recent years, where we can't reach agreement and where the community is divided. This is an issue where the community has spoken loudly and clearly on over and over again. There are few issues you could find where you would get such a vast majority of community support as you could find with marriage equality. But rather than just get on with it, act and vote for it, as we do on every other issue—barring constitutional change—in this chamber, the government has chosen to use this as yet another opportunity to settle old scores, to turn on each other and knife each other, and to create yet another policy shambles.

The so-called solution that has come out of the coalition party room this week, headed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, is an absolute joke. Step 1 was to send back to the Senate the request to have an in-person, voting plebiscite, knowing full well that the Senate would vote it down—and that is what we did again today. The government knew that that was an absolutely futile exercise, that nothing had changed and the Senate was still going to vote against a plebiscite where people would turn up and vote. But that was step 1—send it back in there with this forlorn hope that something might have changed. Inevitably, this morning it was voted down by the Senate. So, step 1: a complete failure.

Let's move onto step 2: a $120 million postal survey conducted by the census-fail organisation, the Australian Bureau of Statistics. That is a postal survey which will not only be incredibly expensive; it will be optional, it will be divisive, it will be ignored by many members of the coalition party room, when we end up getting to a vote anyway, it will be non-binding—so you've really got to wonder what is the point in having it happen—and we all know from a range of legal opinions that there is actually a real legal cloud over whether this postal survey is even legally permissible to conduct. We will have to wait to see what the High Court says. What an absolute shambles. Step 1, send it to the Senate where it will be inevitably knocked over; and, step 2, send it off to a postal survey which is riddled with holes and which many coalition MPs have said they will ignore the result of no matter what the result is. What an absolute shambles.

Focusing for a moment on the cost of this postal survey: $120 million. In the electorates that I represent, I can think of a large number of things where that money would be better spent. In Rockhampton, in Central Queensland, many people in the community want to see a flood levee built to prevent the town from flooding into the future. This postal survey would pay for three flood levees in the city of Rockhampton. But, instead of doing that, this government is happy to spend money on a postal survey which its own members of parliament will actually ignore. On the Gold Coast, the $120 million amounts to three times the cuts that Minister Steven Ciobo, the federal Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, has made to tourism spending. I can think of a lot of tourism businesses on the Gold Coast that could really benefit from some of that tourism funding being restored. But, instead of that, we're going to waste this money on a postal survey which the members of parliament will actually end up ignoring.

In the short time that we’ve had available, I put out a request to Queenslanders to let me know their stories about what this postal survey will mean to them, and I have had quite a number of requests overnight from people. I will just read a couple of them in the time I have remaining. Angela, who has been with her partner, a female partner, for 20 years, said:

There's barely a cross word between us. We are still as madly in love today as we have ever been. We have two gorgeous children and two little grandchildren. We'd like to get married in front of our family and friends.

In the end she says:

We just want to feel equal. We just want to share that loving moment with those we love and who love us.

That's not a lot to ask, but, unfortunately, this government is making it harder and harder for them to experience that. From Audrey:

My story is like many others that struggle growing up. All through primary school and high school I wished and hoped that I wouldn't end up being gay. I hid my true self for so many years.

This government is getting in the way of these people having their relationships recognised. (Time expired)