Menace, brinkmanship, joy: how marriage equality made it through Australia’s parliament
Five years ago the results of the marriage equality postal survey were announced in a joyous turning point for those who had campaigned for Australia to recognise that all loving relationships should be treated equally by our laws.
Within a month the Australian parliament had done what it always should have been prepared to do and backed Senator Dean Smith’s private member’s bill to legalise same-sex marriages.
While there are few certainties in politics, if this issue hadn’t been resolved by the Turnbull government in 2017 it may have languished during the remainder of that term and during the Morrison government that followed. It’s hard to fathom today but debate on legislation might be happening right now as an early order of business for the Albanese government.
I often think of what that might have meant. I wonder, for example, if we would have landed hosting rights for WorldPride in 2023 without marriage equality. This will be such an important event for our place in the world.
But, far more importantly, given the more than 24,000 same-sex marriages in the period since, so many Australians would have been denied the chance to legally declare their enduring love and partnerships.
The first same-sex marriage I attended in Australia was of a 98-year-old constituent, Neville Wills, who wanted to marry his partner of 39 years. His story was one of my inspirations during the marriage equality debate.
Neville is no longer with us but he achieved his goal and married the man he loved, witnessed by family and friends and his local federal MP.
The fact that marriage equality was enacted in 2017 came down to the incredible work of so many campaigners who had worked to change attitudes within the parliament and the broader community.
Fundamentally, as the postal survey showed, they tapped into the deep sense of fairness of the majority of Australians.
Within the parliament a quantum shift had also occurred. The Labor party had changed its approach from its previous official opposition to marriage equality and, within the Liberal party, key figures including Malcolm Turnbull and his attorney general, George Brandis, were supporters.
The Liberal party then had four openly gay members, Smith and myself, joined by Tim Wilson and Trevor Evans at the 2016 election. And then there was that unlikely champion, the crocodile farmer from far north Queensland, Warren Enstch, who had so doggedly argued the case for years – often as a lonely voice.
We became known as the “rainbow rebels” because we were determined to make marriage equality happen during that term of parliament.
It was a year of brinkmanship. With the Coalition committed to a full plebiscite, one that had been rejected by the Senate, debate was at an impasse. Those in the Coalition most vehemently opposed to marriage equality were determined to see progress end then and there.
Yet the efforts of the marriage equality campaigners ensured the issue was not going away. For the five of us on the backbench who most wanted change, our goal was to see the Coalition support a free vote in the parliament.
It was frankly ridiculous and offensive that it wasn’t, when you look at the history of free votes.
Our calls fell on deaf ears but we maintained the prospect of the rainbow rebels pursuing our own action in parliament. Smith led the preparation of a bill which we circulated. We kept our colleagues guessing.
In reality, it was a tough call – there was the likelihood that even if we had crossed the floor a bill would fail in the Senate if it scraped through the House of Representatives.
Menacingly, some in the parliamentary party made clear that action by us would lead to a challenge to Turnbull’s prime ministership. I felt this pressure considerably, with some of my moderate cabinet colleagues warning that if we took unilateral action Turnbull would face the consequences, even if done without his concurrence.
All these forces led to the decision of the Turnbull government to hold the postal survey.
It’s not an approach I supported, primarily because I believed that as parliamentarians, we had been elected to make such decisions. Yet, for all its failings, having that affirmation from the Australian people not only ensured marriage equality but had a more profound effect.
As a gay man, the support from my fellow Australians – 72% in my own electorate – is something I feel deeply to this day.
Australians will soon face another vote on a major issue for our nation when we considered constitutional amendments to create the Indigenous voice to parliament.
There are lessons to be learned from the marriage equality campaign and the skilful way in which it was led by the yes campaign. In short, part of its success was the way the campaign established a respectful conversation at the grassroots: sons and daughters talking to their parents and grandparents, conversations in the workplace, and door-to-door campaigning.
With enormous discipline, the equality campaign leadership avoided responding to the grenades thrown by opponents.
Instead, an environment was encouraged in which hesitant voters could ask the difficult questions without feeling as though they might be condemned or ridiculed. And, finally, it helped that there was a proposition on the table – in this case Smith’s bill which had been crafted to accommodate different perspectives and was widely endorsed. Australians therefore knew the likely shape of what marriage equality would look like.
Five years on, the journey of the LGBTIQ+ community continues. Marriage equality was a major step but not the end, as the debate on the religious discrimination bill highlighted.
Yet thanks to those events of 2017 there can be no doubt most Australians want fairness and equality to be at the heart of how we move forward as a nation.
Trent Zimmerman is the former federal member for North Sydney
It was a tough call – there was the likelihood that even if we had crossed the floor a bill would fail in the Senate
most influential audience he has addressed since the war started, Zelenskiy tried to pitch himself as a man prepared to reach an agreement with Russia but only on terms that protected Ukrainian sovereignty, and recognised the valour with which his troops had fought to protect their homeland.
In a pitch to Xi, he condemned “the crazy threats of nuclear weapons that Russian officials resort to. There are and cannot be any excuses for nuclear blackmail,” he added, pointedly thanking the “G19” – excluding Russia – for “making this clear”.
According to Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, Xi told the US president, Joe Biden, at their bilateral meeting on Monday evening that “nuclear weapons should not be used and nuclear wars should not be fought”.
The Ukrainian leader also called for the expansion and indefinite extension of a grain deal brokered by the UN and Turkey in July.
Much of the diplomatic arm-twisting at the G20 focuses on the terms by which Russia will allow the deal to continue. It has already suspended cooperation once, saying the west had not done enough to persuade insurers and shipping companies to distribute Russian wheat and fertilisers.
Russia and Ukraine account for about 30% of the world’s wheat and barley exports, a fifth of its maize, and more than half of all sunflower oil.
The Russian invasion had blocked 20m tonnes of grain in its ports until the deal was reached in July. Russia says the export deal has only been partially implemented.
But Russia says the deal is lopsided because western sanctions have indirectly continued to cast a shadow over the exports of Russian grain by affecting payments, insurance and shipping.
The grain deal has been a rare patch of diplomatic sunlight, but is up for renewal this Friday.
The deal allowing exports past the Russian navy from three Ukrainian seaports has been critical to lowering grain prices.
The dispute over the future of the grain deal is part of a wider diplomatic battle between Russia and the west to convince sceptical opinion in the global south that right is on their side. In his speech, Zelenskiy, fresh from visiting Kherson, a city recaptured from Russia this week, gave little ground on the terms for any peace settlement.
He said such an agreement could be signed at an international conference, adding that Russia would be required to hand over some of its assets as compensation for the task of rebuilding Ukraine. In a symbolic vote, the UN general assembly voted on Monday to approve a resolution recognising that Russia must pay reparations to Ukraine, in a non-binding move backed by 94 of its 193 members.