Today the Senate voted – 31 against, 31 for on whether Australia should have a plebiscite on same sex marriage. The motion was defeated meaning Australia will now go to a controversial voluntary postal plebiscite.
Labor Senator Penny Wong is openly gay and has two children with her partner, Sophie. Before the vote, Penny Wong gave an impassioned speech in the senate. This is an edited transcript of her speech.
***
Well, this motion is not about giving Australians a say.
This motion is about weakness and division on that side of the parliament.
This motion is about a government so divided and so leaderless, they have to handball a hard decision to the community to make it because they cannot make it in their party room. That’s what this is about.
And no amount of words from my colleague can hide from the fact that this is one big massive handball, because this is a government without a leader, utterly divided on this issue. That is what this vote is about.
Now, I will come back to the substantive in a moment, but let’s just talk about the procedural issue. This is a government that is so weak, it won’t even bring the bill back.
Do you know what the motion before you is? It’s saying, “Oh, you know that second-reading vote we had? Well, we did not like the outcome, so can we have it again?” That’s what this motion is.
They do not even have the guts to bring it back through the lower house - probably because they don’t know if they can hold all their people - so they put a motion on the notice paper saying, "Oh, we just want to restart the second reading, even though you all voted against it." That's what they are doing.
It's a motion to overturn a clear decision made last year by this Senate, where 33 senators voted against, only 29 in favour, and the second reading was defeated. The matter was settled. Comprehensively. But because the Liberal Party room can’t accept that, now we have got to come in here and deal with a procedural motion to try and bring the second-reading debate back on.
Instead of reintroducing the bill here, or in the House, and instead of going through the normal process. But look, the reality is, this is all a stunt. And everybody knows that.
Now, I have a lot of regard for Senator Cormann. He's generally a very decent person to deal with, and he's trying valiantly to create some logic around what is an utterly ridiculous position - which is, "We just want to keep not having a vote, and we can’t decide to have a vote, so we are going to have all these mechanisms, even though the Senate said no. We want a plebiscite. If we can’t have that, we will have a postal ballot, because we can’t get to a decision inside our own party room."
It’s a stunt, it’s a damaging stunt and it’s an expensive stunt.
There a lot of things you could do with $120 million isn’t there? About 3 million GP visits, a couple of thousand teachers. I’m sure we could go through a whole range of things that $122 million could be spent on, far better than a vote that is not going to be binding.
LISTEN: Penny Wong talks to Mamamia about getting married on the I Don't Know How She Does It podcast (post continues after audio...)
Let’s understand that. We can talk a lot about democracy and Australians having their say. Eric Abetz is not going to change his vote, if this is successful. Senator Bernardi is not going to change his vote. He and I have vehemently disagreed. He's not going to change his position. It's like one big opinion survey to get over the fact that the Liberal party room can't make a decision because they're so divided on this issue and because Malcolm Turnbull, regrettably, has not had the courage of his conviction. Has not had the courage of his conviction.
This is a vote whose sole aim is to stop the members of this Parliament being given a chance to do their job and vote.
This is a vote because some in the Coalition can never countenance equality, and they're never going to change their minds. They simply cannot countenance people like me, and others, being equal—simple as that. They're not going to change their minds on this issue.
If you just bring on a vote, we could save the country $120 million and, frankly, put us all out of the misery of having to keep talking about this issue because frankly, the country has moved on.
I'd also make this point: we do live in a parliamentary democracy. We're elected to do a job. Sometimes we do it well and sometimes we do it less well. We're elected to come here to vote, to make decisions.
Watch Penny Wong's important speech. (Post continues after video.)
This country did not have a plebiscite or a postal ballot on the Race Discrimination Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, Native Title legislation, scrapping of the White Australia policy or whether women should get equal pay.
I don't think Tony Abbott took to a people's vote cutting billions of dollars out of health and education. I don't think the government took to a people's vote whether or not corporations should get a big tax cut. But on this they want us to say that we handball it to the community, simply to do with their internal divisions.
I do want to respond to the comment by Senator Cormann that this could be a unifying moment and that people could be respectful. I don't think—I hope—that people watching me debate would think that I'm a shrinking violet. And I know what a hard debate's like. But I tell you: have a read of some of the things which are said about us and our families and then come back here and tell us this is a unifying moment.
The Australian Christian Lobby described our children as 'the stolen generation'.
We love our children, and I object—as does every person who cares about children and as do all those same-sex couples in this country who have kids—to being told that our children are a 'stolen generation'. You talk about unifying moments? That's not a unifying moment. It's exposing our children to that kind of hatred.
And I wouldn't mind so much if you were prepared to speak out on it, if the Prime Minister were prepared to stand up and say, 'That is wrong.' But what does he do? He says it's a dreadful reason, to not trust the Australian people, don't be silly; of course we can have a sensible debate.
Well, maybe he should stand up for some of the people who don't have a voice, because we know the sort of debate that is already there. Let me say, for many children in same-sex couple parented families and for many young LGBTI kids, this ain't a respectful debate already.
Labor will be opposing this motion, and we do so because of our longstanding position, which has been considered by the party and our opposition to a plebiscite. And what I would say to the crossbench is that you made the right decision last time; please make the same decision on this occasion.
***
Top Comments
While I support gay marriage and oppose a plebiscite, I do think the issue of children being raised by gay coupled should be discussed/refuted more often because this is the main reason why some of my friends oppose gay marriage. For example, how do children maintain links to their biological parents and a sense of identity? How do they define their parents in gay families? I don't think a lot of people in the community would know how to answer these questions.
I agree with this too. Rather than shut down opposing arguments, providing logical arguments and some additional information around this would be a huge help.
At the same time - if this is why some people are opposing gay marriage - gay people are partnering and having kids anyway, whether marriage becomes legal or not has no bearing on this.
Can't speak for others but i know two people have a gay parent (in both cases the parents were married, had children, separated when the children were young and one parent entered a same sex relationship). Both people i know absolutely 100% support their parent and are appalled that their parent is discriminated against.
Perhaps we should ask the same of adopted or fostered children, or children born of IVF situations where the sperm and/or egg was donated, or they were born to a surrogate, or raised by a single or widowed parent? Honestly, these friends of yours need to stop being so obtuse - there are already plenty of same-sex families around, and that is a completely separate issue to civil marriage between same-sex people.
You can't just limit that to same sex parents, though. What about single parents that make a deliberate choice to have a child by themselves by way of donor and/or surrogate? Or opposite sex couples using donor materials because of infertility or using surrogates. They're all in the same boat of a child most likely not knowing one or both of their genetic parents or if they have any full/half siblings.
Anti-SSM campaigners drag the issue of children into this debate because they're looking for reasons to get people to agree with them. The ship has already sailed on the issue of same sex couples having kids and referring to it at all from either side of the argument is just wasting time and confusing the issue.
Changing the thousands-of-years-old definition of marriage is a significant shift. Maybe for the better, maybe not, either way, significant. It seems at times like the advocates' view is that SSM is their business and only their business; no-one else should discuss or contribute to the decision. When actually society belongs to everyone, and we all have the right to listen and be heard--and if eligible, cast a vote. That's democracy.
That "thousands-of-years-old" definition of marriage to which you cling was originally founded on the premise that it was a sacred union in which a woman was a subordinate to her partner. Funny that we've had no problems with it evolving over time, to the point of equality between married partners, and it now being removed from the church and even trivialized into reality game shows.... But now you say we all need to hear everyone's opinions about whether to recognize gay unions? Why? I don't recall needing a vote on any of the other significant evolutions if marriage.
Democracy is also ensuring all citizens have equal protection under the law and equal human rights - denying same-sex couples these basic legal rights is contrary to this concept.
They actually do. Same sex couples can enter a civil union which gives them all the benefits of being married, without calling it marriage.
Um, the definition of marriage in Australia was only changed in 2004. And for eras past, men were able to get married. Marriage is not never-changing. And I would like to ask you, why do you feel you should have a say in someone's private life? Doesn't that make you sound perverted, don't you think?