Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people of Australia are going to go 'absolutely postal' when they learn that the Turnbull government is going to waste $122 million on a useless postal vote, which is nothing more than a glorified opinion poll. It is useless because members from their own caucus have already guaranteed that no matter what the result they are going to ignore it. The reason we are going to have this glorified opinion poll is not that Australians have not made up their mind; it's that the government cannot make up its mind and certainly will not do its job.

Well, today I invite the people of Australia to come forward with suggestions from their own electorates about how they would rather spend $122 million. In my own electorate, where every night there are over 1,000 people homeless and looking for a place to sleep, $122 million would go a long way to provide shelter for those homeless people. For the Shellharbour Hospital, sorely in need of an upgrade and which this mob opposite want to privatise, $122 million would go a long way towards fixing that hospital.

I support marriage equality, not the circus that this government is about to drag the country through.