Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Attorney General (Senator Brandis) to a question without notice asked by Senator Rice today relating to the proposed plebiscite into marriage equality.

We learnt three things from the Attorney-General's response to my question regarding the potential impact of the plebiscite on LGBTIQ people and their families. The first was that the Attorney-General must be selectively deaf. He told us that he had met with various lesbian, gay, bi, trans and intersex advocacy organisations—but he would not reveal the details of his conversations with them—and that he still believes that a plebiscite would not cause harm to LGBTIQ people and their families. I have also met with these organisations. I have met with them many times over the last months, and they have told me in no uncertain terms of their concerns about the damage that the plebiscite has the potential to do to their communities.

In fact, just today all parliamentarians had a brochure from Australian Marriage Equality put in their offices. In the foreword, it says:

Equality can be achieved by a parliamentary vote. No Australian should have to witness a national debate on the worth or the value of their relationships.

Senator Brandis told us that he had met with Tiernan Brady from the Irish campaign. I am sure Tiernan Brady told him, as he told us, that if we could avoid having a plebiscite we should avoid having a plebiscite. We should not be putting the LGBTI community through the harm—through the 'brutal affair', as the campaign in Ireland was described in a letter to Australia's politicians from the co-chair of Yes Equality. I know that LGBTI organisations would have told the Attorney-General this in his meetings. He must have been deaf or selectively not listening.

The second thing that we learnt is that Senator Brandis is clearly living on a different planet to the rest of us. Oh, to live in his world, which is full of optimistic, decent, tolerant people, where there is clearly no racism, no prejudice and no discrimination and where LGBTI people are treated as equals! He told us that he does not expect to see hateful, dishonest and hurtful advertising—as was experienced during the Irish referendum campaign. He is clearly disregarding the advice from Ireland that their referendum campaign was very negative and was a brutal affair. Sadly, I think that Senator Brandis is living in a fantasy world, under a rock or with his head in the sand.

I think the reality is reflected in the opinion poll that came out yesterday which said that 53 per cent of Australians think that homophobia is a problem being experienced in Australia. His fantasy world is just that. He is being shamefully insensitive to the real harm that his proposed plebiscite is going to cause and to the real harm of the plebiscite giving a megaphone to the hateful views of what may only be a minority in our community but, sadly, is a very vocal and outspoken minority.

This is particularly so because the senator did not deny that the ads, which are going to be funded by our taxpayer dollars—$7½ million—will be classed as political advertising. That means that they are not going to be required to be factual and they are not going to be required to meet the standards of the Advertising Standards Bureau. This is pretty rich. The government was rather upset about truth and factual content in advertising during the last election campaign, when they were subject to Labor's 'mediscare' campaign, but they are obviously just selectively concerned. In this case, despite the immense harm that these advertisements are going to cause and the megaphone that the plebiscite is going to give to these hurtful views, they do not seem to be concerned.

Frankly, the plebiscite is over. We need to pull the plug on it completely. It is clearly not going to get through this Senate, and the sooner we can get rid of it the better. We are at a stage where the anti-marriage-equality campaigners have lost the debate. But it is now clear that they want to inflict as much harm as possible on the way down.

We do not need to have a plebiscite. We know that we can move for marriage equality. We can have a free vote in this parliament—we could be having it this week—to allow people to marry the person they love. Then we would not need to go through the harm that the rainbow families who visited us yesterday are very fearful of and that Irish people experienced during their referendum campaign. We do not need to put LGBTIQ Australians and their families through that. We need to pull the plug on the plebiscite as soon as possible, move for parliament to do its job and have a free vote. Let love prevail and let people be allowed to marry the person they love.

Question agreed to.