George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I did observe in response to Senator Bilyk's question before that the biggest single difference between that side of the chamber and ours is that we are interested in policy and they are interested in playing politics. If ever that was even more obvious than it had been, it would be obvious to you from Senator Pratt's question, which was only about politics.

The government took to the 2016 election a clear, unambiguous promise that the issue of marriage equality would be resolved by the Australian people at a plebiscite. We made that commitment to the people and we were re-elected. We intend to keep that promise. So, last year, the government introduced into the Senate a bill for a plebiscite, which was defeated by the Labor Party and the Greens playing political games with gay people's lives. This morning the government sought to revive debate on that bill and we were defeated by the Labor Party and the Greens because they want to play political games with gay people's lives.

Because the government has been thwarted in its attempts to honour its election promise to engage and enable the Australian people to have their say through a personal attendance plebiscite, we are going to do the next best thing, and that is to have a postal plebiscite. What I would say to everyone on the Australian electoral roll—all 16 million of them—is: have your say; involve yourself in this important act of democratic choice.