Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the bill. At the 2016 federal election the Turnbull government campaigned on the policy of a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. The idea of a plebiscite was widely canvassed during the election and the Attorney-General and Special Minister of State have prepared a bill for this parliament to implement that promise. I support the traditional definition of marriage: that marriage is between a man and a woman. In the plebiscite, I will vote against changing the definition of marriage. However, like my friend the member for Warringah, in the event that the plebiscite is carried nationwide, I will vote to implement the result of the plebiscite.

I believe Australia can have a civilised conversation about marriage. Immediately prior to my election to this House, I was in charge of public policy at the Australian Catholic University. In that context, I organised two respectful conversations on marriage through the lens of the teaching of the Catholic church. Speakers included proponents of changing the definition of marriage such as former New South Wales Labor Premier Kristina Keneally and former Human Rights Commissioner, and now my esteemed colleague, Tim Wilson, the member for Goldstein. The forum also included advocates for traditional marriage such as Bishop Peter Comensoli and journalist Miranda Devine.

The editor-at-large of TheAustralian newspaper, Paul Kelly, was a participant in one of those conversations. He did not take a side but raised questions about some of the consequences for religious freedom of changing the definition of marriage that have not been properly ventilated through the parliamentary process. Paul Kelly noted that changing the definition of marriage means the law of the state and the law of the church would be at odds. He pointed out that, in the event of a change, activists would seek to bring both of these into line by challenging the law of the church. Importantly, Paul Kelly noted that, in the context of this debate, religious freedom means more than just protecting the right of religious celebrants to refuse to perform a same-sex marriage ceremony.

Both of these conversations can be seen online. I encourage Australians to view them to see that a civil conversation on this issue is possible and desirable. But this takes discernment, urbanity and tolerance on both sides of the debate. My former colleague Dr Michael Casey, now executive director of the PM Glynn Institute, said last week:

We need to re-discover the idea of life in common as a shared landscape, adjust the thresholds so that instead of seeing the person who disagrees with us as an enemy with a malign intent which must be unmasked, we see them as a friend with a different, deeply-held view of the right thing to do.

That is the approach I will take in any of my conduct in this debate and it is an approach I would encourage on all sides.

My view of marriage is a personally held view. One advantage of the plebiscite is that it gives all Australians the chance to have their own say on what is a deeply moral and personal issue. Another advantage of the plebiscite is that, because it is a vote of the Australian people, the result will carry a political weight much greater than a vote in the parliament. Whatever the result, following a plebiscite I think activists on both sides should regard the issue as being settled.

While the plebiscite is not a referendum to change the Constitution, this bill draws on provisions of the Referendum Machinery Provisions Act and the experience of the 1999 republic referendum. As in 1999, the bill envisages the establishment of a 'yes' committee and a 'no' committee, funded equally at $7.5 million, which will produce advertising campaigns to persuade voters to vote for or against same-sex marriage.

I want to speak about the issue of equal public funding of both the 'yes' and 'no' case and draw on my own experience as a member of the government 'no' committee for the 1999 republic referendum to help illustrate why public funding and, in particular, why equal public funding for a plebiscite or a referendum campaign is so important. I also want to make some comments on the abandoned 2013 local government referendum as an illustration of the undesirable practice of unequal and distorted public funding, which should never be repeated.

In the proposed plebiscite, much like a referendum, parliament is putting both the deliberative and the determinative powers over this issue into the hands of the Australian people. When people are to make a decision on an issue they need to be able to make a true choice and inform themselves of various alternatives. Unless they hear both arguments it is difficult to make a true choice.

It can be tempting for those of us engaged in the public debate to assume that the general public is as interested in government, political and policy matters as many of the active participants in the public debate are. But this is not necessarily the case. The republic debate provides a good case study in this regard.

Republicanism can trace its origins to 19th century radicals. It was revived by 1960s intellectuals and some on the Left after the Whitlam dismissal. Modern republicanism dates to the launch of the Australian Republican Movement in 1991. In 1993 the cause was taken up by Prime Minister Keating and in 1998 Prime Minister Howard held a partly-appointed, partly-elected constitutional convention to design a republic model for a referendum.

I am going into this history to illustrate that there had been a long, lively and intense public debate on whether Australia should be a republic. Despite this, the 1999 'yes' committee found that only four months out from the referendum 38 per cent of Australians were unaware of what the referendum they were due to vote on was about.

As honourable members know from our own experience in our own electorates there is always a percentage of people who do not know a federal election is coming or, even after the election campaign has commenced, what date it will be. A referendum or a plebiscite is no different. That is why it is necessary to have publicly funded advertising to create not only awareness of the vote but to enable people, in a deliberative democracy, to hear the arguments both for and against the proposals on which they will vote.

Members of this House will be aware of the difficulties in raising money for election campaigns. It is much more difficult to raise money for a referendum or a plebiscite on a single topic than for a general election. With limited funds it can be more difficult to explain the details of the proposal to members of the public. In a crowded and diffuse news-media landscape it is important to have the funds to provide information to the public. Equal public funding levels the playing field. It means that if one side of the debate is supported by well-funded supporters that side of the debate does not have an unfair advantage over the other side.

In 1999 the 'yes' campaign had a massive advantage over the 'no' campaign. The 'yes' campaign had a substantial business war chest. It had the advantage of the support of most of the media. Without equal public funding in 1999 Australians may only have heard one side. In a deliberative democracy this is unfair and unjust.

John Howard's innovation of an equally funded 'yes' and 'no' committee to prepare an advertising campaign to put arguments to Australians before they cast their vote to change the Constitution was a positive development in helping to ensure Australians have heard the arguments for and against change. It should become a permanent feature of the referendum architecture in Australia, and I am pleased to see it appear here in the plebiscite bill.

While 1999 provides an example of good practice, an example of bad practice was the then Gillard Labor government's decision to provide unequal funding for the 'yes' and 'no' cases at a proposed referendum in 2013 to recognise local government in the Constitution. On that occasion Labor proposed to give the 'yes' case $10 million and the 'no' case $500,000.

The 'yes' campaign would also have been boosted by a bonus of $10 million of ratepayer money from the Australian Local Government Association and an $11.6 million national civics education campaign in support of the 'yes' case. That was a total of $31.6 million of public funding for the 'yes' case and $500,000 for the 'no' case.

Labor's actions at the local government referendum represent an attempt to rort the democratic process—a situation which should never be allowed to happen again. When the Australian people have to vote at a plebiscite, as in this case, they need to be able to hear the arguments for and against a proposal. That is why I am such a strong supporter of equal public funding for this plebiscite and for all referenda to alter the Constitution.

There has been some public commentary opposing equal public funding for the same-sex marriage plebiscite suggesting that there are no checks and balances on what could be said in a plebiscite campaign and that all of the arguments advanced by activists opposed to same-sex marriage will find their way into government advertising. I hope to show that the regulatory architecture established by this bill and the experience of the referendum in 1999 mean that this will not necessarily be the case.

In early 1999 I was appointed by Prime Minister Howard to serve as a member of a ten-person committee comprising delegates from the constitutional convention, at which I had been an elected delegate, to develop an advertising campaign to support the 'no' vote at the republic referendum to be held later that year.

Each committee was given $7½ million to conduct an advertising campaign. Guidelines for the expenditure of money were issued, including the need to abide by competitive tendering processes and the need to submit a budget to the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications—the MCGC.

Advertisements needed to be submitted to the MCGC for final approval to ensure they met the government's advertising guidelines. I recall several instances where our campaign team had to negotiate advertisements with the MCGC. I recall, in some instances, the language of the advertisements were modified as a result of the MCGC processes, and the exchanges on all these points were robust.

In addition to the MCGC oversight of the committee's work was undertaken by the Referendum Taskforce, the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations, the Australian Electoral Commission and, ultimately, the Federal Court. At one point or another all of these bodies were called upon to rule on elements of the campaign by one side or the other.

I make these points to illustrate that the official 'yes' and 'no' committees in 1999 were not a free-for-all. While there was a chance to put forward a wide range of arguments, there was no sense in which the committees conducted themselves in an atmosphere of completely unconstrained free speech. Similar mechanisms in the bill before the House and guidelines to be issued by the Special Minister of State will provide similar protections in a plebiscite.

I wish to make one final observation about something that was part of the architecture in the 1999 republic referendum—and, indeed, every referendum since 1912—but which has been left out of this proposal, and that is the publication of a yes/no booklet. As part of any proposal to alter the Constitution parliamentarians who have voted for or against the proposal are tasked with preparing a case of no more than 2,000 words for each side of the argument. Both cases appear in a booklet along with the text of the proposed alteration. That booklet is mailed to every elector within 14 days of the referendum.

I recall in 1999 that research undertaken for the No committee indicated that Australians took the Yes/No booklet very seriously. They took the chance to read and reflect on the arguments it contained. Since 1999, there has been an attack by some commentators, particularly in academic circles, on the Yes/No booklet. Some think it should be dispensed with. However, in an age when we are overburdened by electronic communications, receiving personally addressed printed material has a greater impact and perhaps underscores the seriousness of the decision to be made.

Again, at the time of the local government referendum, Labor changed the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act to weaken the effect of the Yes/No booklet so that the Yes/No booklet would be sent as unaddressed mail to every household, not to every elector. This meant that it had less chance of being read and more chance of being chucked out with the Coles catalogue.

I regret that the authors of this bill did not include a yes/no booklet in the suite of measures to enact the plebiscite. I note the cost of publishing the booklet but I also note that voters appreciate the chance to quietly analyse the arguments it contains.

In conclusion, the package of equal funding administered by a Yes and No committee should allow Australians sufficient information to make a true choice on the issue of same-sex marriage. I commend the bill to the House.

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