The government’s proposed plebiscite on marriage equality is officially doomed. With the Labor Party announcing their intention to vote the plebiscite bill down in the Senate, there’s no way it can go ahead, and Australia’s tortuously long, needlessly bumpy road to marriage equality has taken yet another twist.
LGBT activists and pro-equal marriage campaigners welcomed the news, saying it will force the government to do its job and stave off a divisive, potentially harmful public debate on something that doesn’t impact most people’s lives.
But since the plebiscite’s well-deserved booting, armchair critics have been out in force insisting that these campaigners don’t know what they’re doing, that they’ve made some crucial, irreversible error, and should swallow the plebiscite in the name of playing ‘real’ politics.
In , Fairfax political correspondent Mark Kenny called marriage equality campaigners who opposed the plebiscite “naive”, compared them unfavourably to the tactics used by US rights reformers in the 1960s, and demonstrated an embarrassing lack of understanding of both.
“What if, despite wide public support and the backing of all mainstream political leaders, marriage equality is suddenly three years away at best? Or even three terms away?” Kenny asked. “A lesson for same-sex couples who, right now, could be further away [from] their goal of legal marriage than they thought a few months back.”
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Kenny’s since been taken to task by high-profile LGBT activists like , and , who can do a much better job of pointing out the myriad flaws in his reasoning than I can. But I want to focus on this strange idea that marriage equality is now years or decades off because the plebiscite’s been rejected. Even in the insular, surreal world of Canberra, where closed-door deals between politicians dictate the direction of public policy more than their real-world effects, marriage equality is a lot closer than Kenny and other casual observers seem to think.
"Even in the insular, surreal world of Canberra, marriage equality is a lot closer than Kenny and other casual observers seem to think."
The baldest measure of how close Australia is to marriage equality is the number of federal politicians willing to vote for it in the Parliament. To become law, any bill needs 76 votes in the House of Representatives and 39 votes in the Senate. According to to the 45th Parliament, both houses are a handful of votes short of passing a marriage equality bill without Coalition help — for the moment.
In the Lower House, there are currently 65 non-Coalition MPs declared in their support for marriage equality. Three Labor MPs, Maria Byrne, Tony Zappia and Maria Vamvakinou, are undeclared, potentially bringing that number up to 68. That leaves our hypothetical marriage equality bill anywhere between eight and eleven votes short of passing.
Let’s assume that, in the current environment, none of those votes can come from the Coalition frontbench — any minister crossing the floor would automatically be demoted, and such a move would be construed as a challenge to Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership.
But there’s very little to stop the 12 pro-marriage equality Coalition backbenchers from voting their conscience in defiance of Party orders. Three of those backbenchers, Tim Wilson, Trent Zimmerman and Trevor Evans, are openly gay. Another nine are on record as marriage equality supporters. Ten more haven’t declared themselves one way or the other. That’s 22 possible votes for a bill that, at most, only needs half that number to get up.
"There’s very little to stop the pro-equality Coalition backbenchers from voting their conscience"
Now let’s look at the Senate. At the moment, there are 32 non-Coalition votes for marriage equality in the Upper House — seven short of a majority. The road to securing those seven votes on the government side of the chamber is difficult. One Coalition backbench Senator, Dean Smith, is openly gay, and another five are either on record as equal marriage supporters or undecided. Even if all could be convinced to defy their party and cross the floor, we would still be one vote short.
Which is where the Opposition comes in. Seven Labor Senators are either personally opposed to marriage equality or publicly undeclared on the issue. But that’s not to say they couldn’t be compelled to vote for it — after all, Labor already plans to make support for marriage equality binding for its Parliamentarians by 2019. One of the five anti-marriage equality Labor Senators, , has already stated he will vote in favour of an equal marriage bill after the next election despite his personal opinion on the issue. If he and the other four holdout Labor Senators could be convinced or pressured to do so in this Parliamentary term, a marriage bill could pass the Senate without a single Coalition vote.
"It’s simplistic to assume that openly gay politicians will automatically vote with their conscience"
There are plenty of caveats to the scenarios I’ve outlined above. It’s simplistic to assume that the openly gay politicians I’ve mentioned will automatically vote with their conscience rather than their party compulsion. They are complex individuals who exist outside their sexuality, and whose opinions and priorities are shaped and bound by much more than the fact of who they love. Penny Wong’s historic opposition to marriage equality is proof enough that LGBT politicians don’t necessarily always vote for LGBT interests.
But a concerted, targeted effort to shift those few votes, to impress upon those backbenchers that they alone hold the rights and happiness of thousands in their hands, would be a very powerful thing. At the very least, it would keep marriage equality on the agenda when most in the government fervently want the issue to go away.
"The government can’t pretend marriage equality is someone else’s responsibility anymore"
The rest is politics. With the plebiscite dead, the government can’t pretend marriage equality is someone else’s responsibility anymore. If openly gay Coalition MPs and their Parliamentary allies were to openly defy Turnbull’s directive to tow the party line, or publicly call for a free vote, he can’t shift the blame to anyone but himself. And as , if it ends up damaging or even ending Turnbull’s tenure as Prime Minister, that’s no one’s problem but his own.
Something along those lines is exactly what marriage equality campaigners intend to do. Speaking to , longtime campaigner Rodney Croome said the post-plebiscite strategy of PFLAG, Just Equal and other groups will focus on lobbying those handful of Coalition MPs most open to crossing the floor. Despite what Kenny and others think, marriage equality campaigners have good heads on their shoulders. They’ve been doing this a long, long time, and know the ins and outs of the politics far better than they’re given credit for. Not only will they win in the end, but they’ll win on their terms, and armchair critics like Kenny won’t have much to say when they do.
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Alex McKinnon is a journalist based in Sydney. Most recently he served as political and opinion editor of pop-culture website Junkee and editor of the Star Observer, Australia's longest-running LGBTI newspaper.
