Tony Abbott was never going to come out of a marriage equality debate well. Even when he wins, he loses. And, politics being what it is, I can’t help but wonder how much that played a part in Liberal MP Warren Entsch’s private members bill, which forced the government to declare a position.
Still, he didn’t have to lose quite as idiotically as he did.
Abbott called a combined party room meeting yesterday, in which the Coalition voted 66-33 against allowing a conscience vote on the cross party private members bill to legalise marriage equality. Of the 79 Liberal party member, 33 supported the free vote.
“I’ve come to the view – I believe this is the party room view – that this is the last term in which the Coalition party room can be bound, although we will definitely maintain the current position for the life of this term,” Abbott said.
In other words, he knows the majority of the country (72% according to one poll) are in favour of marriage equality, but the government is going to vote against it anyway. That’s a hell of a position to take for one of the most unpopular Prime Ministers we’ve ever had.
“Going into the next election, we will finalise another position. The disposition of the party room this evening is that our position going into the next election should be that in a subsequent term of parliament, this is a matter that should rightly be put to the Australian people.”
This is his attempt at a sop to the proponents of marriage equality in the party and the electorate. He’s offering a “a plebiscite, or a constitutional referendum” in their next term (assuming they get one).
Which is odd, because a referendum is only required to make changes to the constitution. Marriage is defined as being between “a man and a woman” in legislation, not in the constitution, and the High Court has already ruled that the Federal Government can make changes to the definition of marriage. A referendum isn’t needed and wouldn’t be relevant. A plebiscite is basically just a very expensive poll, it has no force in law, so while it might be politically difficult to ignore, it’s not legally binding.
Additionally, the political tactics Abbott used to force this vote through have further destabilised an already chaotic party room. The combined party meeting (Liberals and Nationals) rather than just a Liberal party meeting, which he sprang on the joint party room without talking to his Cabinet first, was described by Christopher Pyne as “branch stacking”, an attempt to ensure that the vote would go against changing the party position. But there were only 20 National members in the party room and 3 of them support marriage equality. If the vote was 66-33, Abbott didn’t need those extra 17 votes. If he didn’t know this before the meeting then he should probably reconsider his career as a professional politician. Why cause such internal disruption and bad feeling over a vote he was going to win anyway?
He also said that of the 33 yes votes, around 12 of them would have voted against the marriage equality bill.
So his argument was that he won the ballot against allowing conscience votes, even though a conscience vote wouldn’t have had the numbers from his side to win, and he did it on an issue that he knows the majority of the country in in favour of, but if he’s given a second term he’ll ask the nation if it is in favour of it, without in any way being bound by the result of that poll.
And the reason for all of this is because his only support in the party is on the hard right conservative side, he cannot afford to fall out with people like Cory Bernardi if he wants to hold on to the leadership.
It’s a very short term view, given that there will be an election some time in the next 18 months, where falling out with the Australian people is going to do him, and the party, a lot more damage.
None of this is really all that surprising though. If Abbott has demonstrated a refined skill at anything over his Prime Ministership, it’s a singular ability to self-sabotage. What is surprising is that his party is still so willing to allow his self inflicted injuries to bleed all over the rest of them. If current polls continue the Coalition will lose the next election. Why are they still so willing to go down with Abbott’s ship?