Senate debates

Monday, 27 November 2017

Bills

Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017; Second Reading

8:45 pm

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like many before me, I rise to make a contribution to the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017, Senator Smith's bill.

I've been watching the debate as it has proceeded today and towards the end of the last sitting, and I just want to address this question around the government having reached out to the Australian people to engage in this process to allow the parliament to have a clear indication of where they ought to go with this. It's well known that the government—the coalition—took this opportunity as an election promise. We took it to an election and we were elected into government. I find it increasingly difficult to hear advocates indicate that for some reason or another any side of parliament that takes a promise to the people, and is endorsed with being given the government benches, should then abandon that promise. That's the first thing. We'd have been criticised for that equally, had we not proceeded.

I was one of the people who pursued a plebiscite—not a postal plebiscite, I must admit. I was successful in getting a unanimous motion before some 700 or 800 delegates of the Liberal National Party conference in Queensland. Notwithstanding the fact that there were speakers strongly against the proposition, including the Attorney-General, the conference overwhelmingly supported the question of a plebiscite. I'd been watching this closely with colleagues and, mind you, I have been long on the record, as a private person, that I would vote no if the opportunity presented itself in a plebiscite, but my argument was I had engaged with so many colleagues, both here in the Senate and in the other place, who I think had abandoned their fundamental role in representative democracy. There were colleagues who indicated to me that, had they followed what they believed was the appropriate position on behalf of their electorates, they would have voted differently to what they were intending to vote.

In a representative democracy each of us goes to our communities and we present ourselves, we present our policies and we present our promises. We have an obligation as we vote in this place to take their wishes into account when we make decisions. There are occasions, of course, when information not available to us at that time comes along which might cause us to change our position. At that point, we have to try and anticipate what our electorate, if you like, might want us to do in those circumstances. I personally believe that we then have something of an obligation to pursue what we consider are their interests.

Remember that there have been 24 attempts to change the Marriage Act from when the legislation was introduced under the Howard government, including four bills that made their way into full debate and failed: 24 occasions. Suddenly, we wake up with some collective wisdom that after those 24 attempts somehow society had moved on—measured in months—and that now we should ignore the history of evolution on this question, we should all suddenly simply vote yes and immediately come into these places and produce legislation to support that position.

If you want to look at things in my home state, people living in about 80 per cent of the land mass voted no—very decidedly no. In those circumstances you might think that someone like me, particularly as a senator, ought to take that into consideration and support a 'no' vote against—

Senator McKim interjecting—

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