Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We have just got to call this what it is. We have both the coalition and the Labor Party running away from a debate that they do not like. That is what this is: trying to kill off a debate, running scared—running scared because we have already seen the bile from Senator Bernardi who has now lost his job over the hate that came forward from him last night. But he was not on his own.

I had the pleasure of listening to some of the other coalition speakers: Senator Joyce, whose views belong more to the 1950s than modern Australia, insulted anyone without children by indicating that the only reason someone would get married is to pass on their genetic material. That means that should you adopt or be unfortunate enough not to be able to have kids, then your marriage does not count, is not important, does not mean anything.

We had Senator Boswell whose view of the world is that a woman's place is in the kitchen making sure dinner is ready for hubby for when he gets home. Good old Senator Boswell wants to return to a time when Aboriginal people could not vote and when we could not talk about the issue of equality and how we should be able to live in a society where all people are treated equally. The coalition are running away from this debate, because they have already lost Senator Bernardi over his spiteful, hateful and divisive comments. If it goes on for a bit longer, who knows what might happen? The genie would be out of the bottle. We would hear all of these folks with their prejudiced views not being able to help themselves. People at the moment are just holding back because they think: 'Give this a bit of time and it'll be off the political agenda.' It is not going anywhere.

If this debate is killed tomorrow, it will be back because we will make sure it comes back. We know the Australian community wants it to come back. There is overwhelming popular support for this. Imagine a time when the party of liberalism, the party of the individual, does not allow their individual members a conscience vote on this issue. It is denying each and every one of these members of the party of individualism, the party of small government, a conscience vote. Who would have thought it?

The government deserves criticism as well. We know that there are many members within the government who support our position on this who wanted a debate, and yet we have people like Joe de Bruyn making it very, very clear that this is a debate that must be killed—not because it does not have popular support but precisely because it does. We have to kill it because it has got popular support. That is the logic of Joe de Bruyn's speech to the Australian Christian Lobby. We cannot win this argument on its merits because people want this change. No, we have got to frighten you into submission. What a terrific piece of logic that was. Good on you, Joe.

Coalition and conservative prime ministers right across the globe are getting behind marriage equality: New Zealand, eight other countries and states across the US—Barack Obama has changed his position but not Julia: 'No, no, no. We cannot change our position, because it has got popular support.'