Same sex marriage plebiscite

#marriageequalityaus #auspol

Back in the previous millennium Australia considered becoming a republic, PM John Howard played a tricky game in posing the 'question' as follows:

Australian republic referendum, 1999. A proposed law: To alter the Constitution to establish the Commonwealth of Australia as a republic with the Queen and Governor-General being replaced by a President appointed by a two-thirds majority of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament.

Back then Aussies baulked at the idea of having parliament vote to elect a non-executive President. Many refused to accept the implication that the 'people' could not be trusted to directly elect a President and voted the  question posed down.

Roll on to 2016. Here we are scuffling over the prospect of a direct vote/plebiscite on same sex marriage. Times certainly change, for in this case, most reasonable people are preferring to entrust any decision to a majority vote of the members of the Commonwealth Parliament rather than conduct a public vote. Ironic as well that the Republican Malcolm Turnbull is the tricky one posing the question. 

The question will be: Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry? This being decided by a simple majority of voters. If I remember rightly the way the question was posed on the Republic was all important in seeing it defeated back then. Right now,  I sense this is a ploy by the conservatives in politics to delay marriage equality. Many people rightly fear the hate speech that a plebiscite will encourage, so much so that the vote idea may actually be voted down by the opposition 😥

#marriageequalityaus   #auspol