The Coalition’s predisposition for major cock-ups is now bordering on becoming legendary. The ABS $120 million survey is yet another example. There is no other way to describe this non-binding, non-compulsory way of ridiculing a minority of our citizens and denying them equality.
The nonsense of this decision, or the argument for it, can be dismissed with one simple fact. They could all walk into Parliament on Monday, have a conscience vote, and that would be the end of the matter.
But while the rest of the world acts our Government can only think about appeasing a minority of far right religious bigots in their ranks.
IT’S TIME FOR THE PARLIAMENT OF AUSTRALIA TO REFLECT THE PUBLIC’S WILL.
But let me get back to the survey and the politics of it. It would be fair to say that this week has been a disaster for the Government. It got itself into such a mess on this issue that it became desperate, looking as red faced as some teenage boys at a high school sex lesson.
So deficient is it in any form of planning the media has given up on calling it a plebiscite and has settled on the downgraded term ‘’survey.’’
When you here them say, ‘’we are doing what we said we would do,” dismiss it as lying by omission. It’s far from their original policy.
Of course, as I have stated previously, the argument against this silly postal vote is a valid and compelling one. There is a process when legislation is repeatedly rejected. It’s called a double dissolution.
The survey has little legitimacy or credibility. It is just a deeply flawed survey designed to delay the inevitable. Goodness knows how many will take it seriously. And one has to ask the question as to why Turnbull would give Shorten three months to make himself look good while the Prime Minister, already in stress mode, says he wont have time to campaign for a yes vote.
As I see it, no matter what happens Shorten cant lose even if the High Court should knock it on the head.
Please follow my thought processes. Lets say the NO vote gets up and it’s certainly not without a chance given the arrangements. Turnbull would be caught between a rock and a hard place. He would have to honour the result.
Whatever the winning percentage the issue would not go away. If the vote was tight Shorten will argue legitimacy. The issue would be raised repeatedly. Folk on the YES side would continuously raise the matter of principle and the conservative reluctance for change.
Whilst Turnbull desperately needs an overwhelmingly positive YES vote he say he won’t be campaigning for it. My guess is that he has been ordered not too.
Again he will have to show his naked hypocrisy. If the yes vote wins it will be Shorten who gets the credit.
Kaye Lee in a comment yesterday said:
”Interestingly, Malcolm Turnbull gave the 2012 Michael Kirby Lecture – Reflections on Gay Marriage. It’s worth a read because, like all of Malcolm’s speeches, it underlines what a weak-kneed hypocrite he has become.”
If the vote goes down in a tight contest by looking uninterested Turnbull will have to take the blame for not campaigning hard enough.
I didn’t see Shortens speech in Parliament but I’m assured that it was perhaps his best speech as Labor leader. He apparently declared Turnbull weak, unprincipled, and hostage to party room ideologues.
As it stands, Turnbull will be left out of the action if he doesn’t campaign and Shorten and Abbott will become the prominent YES or NO protagonists. It will be interesting to see how Shorten handles Abbott’s lying.
Shorten probably has the weight of public opinion on his side but Abbott will counter with a landslide of gutter politics that I predict will make ones hair stand on end.
Well not mine, but you know what I mean.
And should the High Court (a good each way bet in my view) give the survey the flick then Shorten wins again and Turnbull is left with nowhere to go. It might even cost him the election, and his job.
Before I conclude might I suggest that we give a thought for the LBGTI people who have been sucked into this survey and the damage homophobes can cause to their self-esteem. Here is an example from the darling of self-importance, Bronwyn Bishop.
Here is another tasteless, and factually incorrect one from Tony Abbott.
”Tony Abbott’s claim that marriage is to ‘protect women and children’ rewrites history”
My thought for the day:
”You only truly know a person when who know the cause of the scars they carry.”
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