Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This week, I once again had to look the children of same-sex parents in the face and try to explain to them why it was that this parliament didn't have the guts to actually stand up and say that their parents' relationships are just fine. I had to talk to young gay and lesbian teenagers and try to explain to them why it was that this parliament doesn't have the guts to stand up and say, 'It's just fine to be gay or lesbian, transsexual, bisexual, intersex; it's just fine.' Instead, we have to go through a $122 million survey that this parliament will then end up voting on anyway and that is not binding on this parliament.

It has come to this: a rigged policy, a rigged proposal that is designed to see marriage equality fail in this country. This is a process that is designed by the opponents of marriage equality. The Prime Minister, who calls himself a supporter of marriage equality, gives into the process that is designed by the opponents of marriage equality then says, 'Yes, I'm a supporter of marriage equality, but I'm too busy to campaign.' I have never seen a better example of someone who means well feebly than this Prime Minister who says, 'Yes, I'm a supporter, but I'm too busy to campaign.'

What we see with this $122 million process is actually the cost of the Prime Minister hanging onto his job for a few more weeks, giving in to the right wing of the Liberal Party for a few more weeks—$122 million of taxpayer money! At least when he spent $1.75 million in the election campaign it was his own money to hang onto his job; now it's taxpayers' money that he is using!

The member for Gippsland, the minister, was talking about how we don't trust the Australian people. That is absolutely false. That is one of the first lies that has been told repeatedly in this campaign. Of course we trust the vast majority of the Australian people to have a decent, civilised debate. I trust that the minister—the member for Gippsland—is a decent person who is prepared to have a civilised debate. But there are two things I would say about this. Why didn't John Howard give Australians the opportunity to have a say in 2004 when he changed the Marriage Act for the first time? And why did the 'old' Malcolm Turnbull say that this type of process flies in the face of Australian democratic values when it was proposed for the republic? Why did George Brandis, the Attorney-General, say last year that this sort of process would lack legitimacy? Because they know that this sort of process is designed to disenfranchise people; it is designed to disenfranchise young people.

Look at all these young people that we have up in the gallery today. How many of you are over the age of 18 and on the electoral roll? It would make you unusual: 254,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 are not currently on the electoral roll when they should be. That is more than 13 per cent of this age group, the group that is most guaranteed to vote for marriage equality because they just do not get why we are taking so long to do the wrong thing. They're disenfranchised because they are not on the electoral roll.

The million or so people overseas: are they going to get a vote on this? They won't get a say in this. What about the people that the member for Lingiari was talking about today, the Aboriginal people in his remote communities who get a postal service once a week if they're lucky? Are they going to get their say? No, they won't. This process is designed to stop people having their say. It's not to give Australians a say, it's designed to stop them having a say.

And, oh, my goodness! The Australian Bureau of Statistics, that did such a stellar job with the Census that they had five years to prepare for, have five weeks to prepare for this, and we see already on the first day outages on the Australian Electoral Commission website as people are trying to update their electoral enrolment. We have seen the first lies of the campaign and we have seen the first debacle today with people trying to get on the electoral roll and not able to because the website is crashing.

And the lack of legal protections: honestly! I asked the Prime Minister today if the Commonwealth Electoral Act will protect people in this postal survey. He waffled, as he usually does. He used 10 words where he could have used one. But you know the one word he could have used that would have been accurate? 'No'. That would have been the one word he could have used that would have been accurate. People won't be protected in the way that they should be under the Commonwealth Electoral Act during this survey.

I just want to finish on this: we have already seen the dogs of war unleashed in this debate. We have seen Bronwyn Bishop talking about bestiality and polygamy and killing babies. And we have seen Tony Abbott say that marriage equality, two people who love each other, is a war on our society. These are exactly the sorts of comments we want to avoid in this debate. (Time expired)

See this speech in context