There are two key questions around the issue of gay marriage. One is the pretty straight forward question of whether you support it or not, and the polls suggest it is line ball.
The other question is whether you support the idea of politicians keeping their promises. I haven’t seen the polling on that but I would presume that no research firm has bothered to do any, as you would expect about 100 per cent of people to answer yes, politicians should obviously keep their promises, what a silly question to ask.
Having gone to the last election saying there would be no carbon tax under a government she leads, Julia Gillard will now be introducing one on July 1 next year. It’s a serious breach of voter confidence and one which has done her serious political damage.
As many have argued, when John Howard changed his mind on the GST which he promised to “never ever” introduce, he at least had the decency to return to the polls in 1998 to let the voters re-elect or turf him on a clearly-stated platform of tax reform. Gillard’s promise not to introduce a carbon tax was almost as unequivocal as Howard’s on the goods and services tax, yet she failed to give the voters a chance to accept or reject her change of heart. It may yet be the issue which costs her power at the next election.
At a time when the Prime Minister is struggling to maintain her credibility over the carbon tax backflip, it is truly bizarre that there are some within the Labor Party who are now trying to bludgeon her into a similar backflip over the question of gay marriage.
Despite her lengthy membership of Labor’s Left Faction, which has long regarded gay marriage as a cause worth fighting for, Gillard has taken a clear and frequently-stated stance against same-sex unions. She spent much of the election campaign saying it is her view and the party’s view that marriage is between a man and woman, and was memorably chastised by a young lesbian voter for putting that position during the people’s debate at the Rooty Hill RSL.
At the instigation of the Greens, and with the active support of several members of the Labor Left, Labor Caucus has now signed off on legislation which would prevent the Commonwealth from interfering if gay marriage were legalised in the territories. The constitutional issues are similar to past rows over voluntary euthanasia and safe injection rooms for heroin users which at times have been championed by the NT and ACT.
The political issues are twofold. Hot on the heels of her nasty little fib over the carbon tax, it puts Julia Gillard at risk of looking like a liar all over again as a result of her oft-stated insistence that only heterosexual couples be allowed to marry.
More ominously, it emphasises the growing public view that this Labor Government is bright green on the inside, that Julia Gillard has one hand on the steering wheel and is sharing it with everyone from Bob Brown, Adam Bandt and Christine Milne to country independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor.
You could also throw in the question of priorities – is this really such an important for the Government to busy itself with? Surely working out how a carbon tax can operate without belting household budgets is a more pressing task?
Tony Abbott is all over this second issue like a cheap suit. He tapped into the slang of Gen Y to make the point on radio this week, using the teen term “randoms”, used to describe any social get-together where you get stuck with strangers, to characterise the wacky vibe of this Parliament.
“The Prime Minister’s line, “there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead”, will haunt her,” Abbott said this week. “But the other thing that’s going to haunt her is that image of the Prime Minister milling around in the prime ministerial courtyard being overshadowed by Bob Brown and a whole lot of other random people. Random people, my kids would say. What’s Julia Gillard doing with all those randoms?”
Julia Gillard is acutely aware of this perception and even went to the trouble this week of outlining the major policy differences between Labor and the Greens, such as support for the alliance with the US and the war in Afghanistan, and support for lower rates of company tax and personal tax. The fact that she went to these lengths was a clear sign that she is worried that voters think it is not her but the likes of Bob Brown calling the shots.
Gillard has very few arguments at her disposal to explain her u-turn on carbon. Her line that this was the Parliament the Australian people voted for is a poor one. It sounds like she’s claiming her government has carte blanche to alter its policy agenda from that which the Labor Party presented to the voters during the election campaign. It also ignores the fact that more than 70 per cent of voters opted for either of the major parties. Of the remainder who stumped for Greens and independents, many of them probably did not envisage the policy confusion this non-result would generate.
If Labor’s Left wants to force the Prime Minister to break another of her promises, it should do so in the knowledge that it is writing the script for the Coalition’s negative advertisements for the next election campaign, depicting a government which has not one but several leaders and cannot be taken on its word.
None of these observations by the way have anything to do with the concept of gay marriage. I suspect many voters don’t really care about the issue. My personal views are in favour, if only because it would make a large number of people really happy, and I fail to see how the fact that two blokes can tie the knot in anyway undermines the sanctity of the institution for straight folks.
That’s not the issue right now. It would be another broken promise, which would make the Greens look even more like the Government of the day, on an issue which many voters probably rank about 145th on the list of importance.
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