Extract from The Guardian
A game of chicken on the marriage equality plebiscite and curtseying
to the base on 18C – what an exciting time for a prime minister to be
alive!
Parliament is back on Tuesday after the longest winter. Since 2 July,
Canberra time has stretched and slowed, a function of politics being
pitched into an extended period of irresolution.
Once the white cars pull up to the parliamentary forecourt again, time will accelerate as it does when politics is back in peak season. But it’s not yet clear where the acceleration will lead, which makes this opening of federal parliament the most interesting since the minority parliament in 2010.
We approach next week with a bunch of garden-variety unknowns. Will Scott Morrison be able to retrieve the government’s superannuation reforms? Will Pauline Hanson and her bloc vote positively on the issue that ostensibly triggered the recent federal election – restoring the building and construction commission? Will the Senate decide that shutting down damaging NBN leaks is more important than preserving a mechanism politicians all use to get whistleblowers to bring them information in the public interest? Will Labor come to the party on the omnibus savings bill?
But this weekend I want to look specifically at two high octane unknowns. Both of these issues are particularly important to Malcolm Turnbull’s position as prime minister and Liberal party leader, and will shape his prospects over the short and medium term.
The first is the marriage equality plebiscite, and the second is the continuing internal culture war going on inside the Coalition over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Let’s recap the story of the plebiscite to date. Readers will recall it wasn’t Malcolm Turnbull’s idea. He started from the position of not supporting it. Now the prime minister has to support it, and, I suspect, now wants to support it, for two main reasons. The first is preserving the plebiscite was a condition of entry to the Liberal leadership. The plebiscite is not just an expensive opinion poll – it is a mechanism to hold the Liberal party together through the most dangerous internal issue since the civil war over Turnbull’s support for Labor’s proposed ETS in 2009.
It may not be obvious from a distance, but this group of Coalition MPs entering the 45th parliament are the most ideologically diverse group of liberal/conservatives seen at the federal level, possibly for decades. There is a huge spread, from moderate progressives through the centre to capital C conservatives, both the Abbott rump and the next generation. They are also the mouthiest bunch seen in Canberra in recent memory. Right now, everyone asserts their fundamental human right to stand on their digs. Earlier this week, I described the Coalition as the party of war, and I think there is plenty of evidence to back up that characterisation.
So back to what the plebiscite does. It’s a mechanism to allow capital C conservatives to campaign for discrimination against same-sex couples if they can’t bear to do anything else. The process also allows small c conservatives to vote in favour of marriage equality in the parliament, if Australian voters do. This group can point to the will of the voters when the churches and the Australian Christian Lobby come knocking on their door demanding an explanation. And for liberal moderates, the plebiscite is a sanctioned mechanism for them to articulate their progressivism without being monstered by colleagues. Well, not too much, anyway.
Think of the plebiscite as a flotation device for a prime minister who has emerged from an election contest with his authority diminished. So that’s the practical reason to support the plebiscite if you are Malcolm Turnbull.
There’s also another reason. Some MPs who want marriage equality have also come round to the view that involving the public in the process is a positive for politics at a time when voters have had a gutful of the nonsense in Canberra. Some supporters of reform genuinely believe a public vote will give marriage equality legitimacy.
I fully understand and respect why people in the LGBTI community think very differently and see only the downside risks associated with an outbreak of feelings on the marriage equality proposition, but of course politicians are hard wired to back themselves, to fancy themselves magnificent, catalytic, unifying figures. It’s in their DNA.
So, what’s the status of the plebiscite at the opening of the new parliament? Right now, the plebiscite is in significant trouble. The Greens will oppose it. A consequential clutch of crossbenchers say they will oppose it in the Senate. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, is threatening to oppose it and is under strong internal pressure to kill the plebiscite to force the issue back into the parliament. I would be very surprised, as things currently stand, if Labor supported the plebiscite.
Liberals, sensing the real danger that now exists on this issue, have rallied late in the week to try and make Shorten blink. People are warning Labor explicitly: kill the plebiscite, and we will not help you bring same sex marriage back into the parliament. It will be dead for the next three years.
Let’s call this game high-stakes chicken, with a weakened prime minister sitting right in the middle of the road.
Now to 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which doubtless looks like en epic act of ideological indulgence outside the hothouse, but internally in the Coalition, is something else entirely.
18C in the Abbott era was a key test of his prime ministership, an initiation procedure required by the hard right. Abbott comprehensively failed that test, according to the assessment of an important internal constituency that remains doggedly committed to pursuing the cause of watering down the RDA. He’s acknowledged as much publicly.
Now it’s Turnbull’s turn, and while the issue has gone quiet this past week, you can trust this prediction: it will be back on the agenda sooner rather than later.
When 18C first surfaced post-election, Turnbull tried to bat it off, but there is a complication. MPs including the Family First senator Bob Day, who is working with the Liberals on this issue, say that Turnbull gave them smoke signals of support for removing the words “insult” and “offend” from the act when he was courting support and crunching numbers for the Liberal leadership last year.
Turnbull late this week implicitly acknowledged this when he told Alan Jones: “Let me just say on 18C there has been a strong argument made over a long period of time to remove the words insult and offend from 18C.” Turnbull said one more thing on Jones that should not be overlooked. When asked whether he intended to revisit this question he said no, then immediately qualified the no. “Not at this stage.”
“Not at this stage” doesn’t mean no, it means not now. It’s a curtsey to the base, and evidently an acknowledgement he feels he needs to make. Conservatives certainly noted it.
Now why would Turnbull need to curtsey to the base on 18C?
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence of course, but who should bob up on Friday but the former prime minister Tony Abbott, having a chat to the sorts of folks who think 18C is a key performance indicator of Liberal leaders. There was Tony Abbott, smiling next to Kevin Andrews and the head of the Institute Public Affairs, John Roskam, on Andrew Bolt’s blog on Friday afternoon.
The happy snap followed a speech to a national business constituency. The member for Warringah evidently thought a key responsibility of a northern Sydney backbencher was courting a national business constituency with a wide-ranging speech delivered just before the opening of a new parliament.
There was something “different” about Tony, Bolt thought, helpfully ... actually, hopefully.
I’ve said it before, but it remains true. Malcolm Turnbull used to tell us there is never a more exciting time to be alive.
How right he was.
Once the white cars pull up to the parliamentary forecourt again, time will accelerate as it does when politics is back in peak season. But it’s not yet clear where the acceleration will lead, which makes this opening of federal parliament the most interesting since the minority parliament in 2010.
We approach next week with a bunch of garden-variety unknowns. Will Scott Morrison be able to retrieve the government’s superannuation reforms? Will Pauline Hanson and her bloc vote positively on the issue that ostensibly triggered the recent federal election – restoring the building and construction commission? Will the Senate decide that shutting down damaging NBN leaks is more important than preserving a mechanism politicians all use to get whistleblowers to bring them information in the public interest? Will Labor come to the party on the omnibus savings bill?
But this weekend I want to look specifically at two high octane unknowns. Both of these issues are particularly important to Malcolm Turnbull’s position as prime minister and Liberal party leader, and will shape his prospects over the short and medium term.
The first is the marriage equality plebiscite, and the second is the continuing internal culture war going on inside the Coalition over section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.
Let’s recap the story of the plebiscite to date. Readers will recall it wasn’t Malcolm Turnbull’s idea. He started from the position of not supporting it. Now the prime minister has to support it, and, I suspect, now wants to support it, for two main reasons. The first is preserving the plebiscite was a condition of entry to the Liberal leadership. The plebiscite is not just an expensive opinion poll – it is a mechanism to hold the Liberal party together through the most dangerous internal issue since the civil war over Turnbull’s support for Labor’s proposed ETS in 2009.
It may not be obvious from a distance, but this group of Coalition MPs entering the 45th parliament are the most ideologically diverse group of liberal/conservatives seen at the federal level, possibly for decades. There is a huge spread, from moderate progressives through the centre to capital C conservatives, both the Abbott rump and the next generation. They are also the mouthiest bunch seen in Canberra in recent memory. Right now, everyone asserts their fundamental human right to stand on their digs. Earlier this week, I described the Coalition as the party of war, and I think there is plenty of evidence to back up that characterisation.
So back to what the plebiscite does. It’s a mechanism to allow capital C conservatives to campaign for discrimination against same-sex couples if they can’t bear to do anything else. The process also allows small c conservatives to vote in favour of marriage equality in the parliament, if Australian voters do. This group can point to the will of the voters when the churches and the Australian Christian Lobby come knocking on their door demanding an explanation. And for liberal moderates, the plebiscite is a sanctioned mechanism for them to articulate their progressivism without being monstered by colleagues. Well, not too much, anyway.
Think of the plebiscite as a flotation device for a prime minister who has emerged from an election contest with his authority diminished. So that’s the practical reason to support the plebiscite if you are Malcolm Turnbull.
There’s also another reason. Some MPs who want marriage equality have also come round to the view that involving the public in the process is a positive for politics at a time when voters have had a gutful of the nonsense in Canberra. Some supporters of reform genuinely believe a public vote will give marriage equality legitimacy.
I fully understand and respect why people in the LGBTI community think very differently and see only the downside risks associated with an outbreak of feelings on the marriage equality proposition, but of course politicians are hard wired to back themselves, to fancy themselves magnificent, catalytic, unifying figures. It’s in their DNA.
So, what’s the status of the plebiscite at the opening of the new parliament? Right now, the plebiscite is in significant trouble. The Greens will oppose it. A consequential clutch of crossbenchers say they will oppose it in the Senate. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, is threatening to oppose it and is under strong internal pressure to kill the plebiscite to force the issue back into the parliament. I would be very surprised, as things currently stand, if Labor supported the plebiscite.
Liberals, sensing the real danger that now exists on this issue, have rallied late in the week to try and make Shorten blink. People are warning Labor explicitly: kill the plebiscite, and we will not help you bring same sex marriage back into the parliament. It will be dead for the next three years.
Let’s call this game high-stakes chicken, with a weakened prime minister sitting right in the middle of the road.
Now to 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which doubtless looks like en epic act of ideological indulgence outside the hothouse, but internally in the Coalition, is something else entirely.
18C in the Abbott era was a key test of his prime ministership, an initiation procedure required by the hard right. Abbott comprehensively failed that test, according to the assessment of an important internal constituency that remains doggedly committed to pursuing the cause of watering down the RDA. He’s acknowledged as much publicly.
Now it’s Turnbull’s turn, and while the issue has gone quiet this past week, you can trust this prediction: it will be back on the agenda sooner rather than later.
When 18C first surfaced post-election, Turnbull tried to bat it off, but there is a complication. MPs including the Family First senator Bob Day, who is working with the Liberals on this issue, say that Turnbull gave them smoke signals of support for removing the words “insult” and “offend” from the act when he was courting support and crunching numbers for the Liberal leadership last year.
Turnbull late this week implicitly acknowledged this when he told Alan Jones: “Let me just say on 18C there has been a strong argument made over a long period of time to remove the words insult and offend from 18C.” Turnbull said one more thing on Jones that should not be overlooked. When asked whether he intended to revisit this question he said no, then immediately qualified the no. “Not at this stage.”
“Not at this stage” doesn’t mean no, it means not now. It’s a curtsey to the base, and evidently an acknowledgement he feels he needs to make. Conservatives certainly noted it.
Now why would Turnbull need to curtsey to the base on 18C?
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence of course, but who should bob up on Friday but the former prime minister Tony Abbott, having a chat to the sorts of folks who think 18C is a key performance indicator of Liberal leaders. There was Tony Abbott, smiling next to Kevin Andrews and the head of the Institute Public Affairs, John Roskam, on Andrew Bolt’s blog on Friday afternoon.
The happy snap followed a speech to a national business constituency. The member for Warringah evidently thought a key responsibility of a northern Sydney backbencher was courting a national business constituency with a wide-ranging speech delivered just before the opening of a new parliament.
There was something “different” about Tony, Bolt thought, helpfully ... actually, hopefully.
I’ve said it before, but it remains true. Malcolm Turnbull used to tell us there is never a more exciting time to be alive.
How right he was.
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