Posts Tagged: Julia Gillard gay marriage

Australia / Campaigns / Politicians — 3 Comments
15
Nov 10

FINALLY THE AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT STARTS A REAL DEBATE

Stephen Jones MP (left), Adam Bandt MP (right)

To be sure, this is just one step on a long road, but Monday 15 November will at least be remembered as the day the Australian Commonwealth Parliament decided to grow up about gay marriage.

Melbourne’s Green MP Adam Bandt introduced a motion today calling on all parliamentarians to gauge their constituents’ views on the marriage equality issue (ahead of introducing a draft law on the bill). The Labor Government will support this motion, but apparently not the bill itself.

It is a small step, particularly small indeed, because only a tiny minority of MPs said anything brave, interesting or new… but it is lot better than the minor Greens or Democrat parties simply talking to a brick wall.

For example, here is the Labor MP Stephen Jones (a new MP from a classic working-class Labor heartland seat): ”Having applied the core Labor values of equality, fairness and dignity, I believe that there is a case for change.” He is now one of a dozen government figures who admit their support for equality, while officially the party digs in against it.

Independent Andrew Wilkie warned that Parliament was in danger of being out of touch with community sentiment. ”The majority of the Australian community is ready for a conscience vote on marriage equality, so let’s at least agree to go so far as having a public discussion about the issue,” he said

A quick campaign today by the Get Up lobby group lead to  5,000 personal stories, photos and messages of support for marriage equality being sent to MPs…. people like Sharon Grierson (Labor) are getting the message: “I empathise with the mother who emailed me to say that she has two young adult children, one who is married to the person they love and the other who can’t marry the person they love because they are of the same sex.” Continue reading →

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians — No Comments
10
Nov 10

NOW A LABOR SPONSORED MARRIAGE BILL

Labor MP Ian Hunter

Great news, and further momentum today in Australia.  Ian Hunter MLC – A Labor member of the South Australian Parliament – is introducing a same sex marriage bill into that state parliament. It will be co-sponsored by Tammy Franks MLC from the Greens.

It’s great news from both of them, but especially significant for the pressure it puts on others in the Labor party across Australia to declare their hand.   From the unions to the right-wing heavyweights, to the national Left faction and now to individual MPs like Ian Hunter – there is support everywhere.

Do we have a majority in Canberra?  Not yet – but the point is the debate cannot be stopped now. It’s been happening and now it will keep happening in state parliaments …. Until Julia Gillard wakes up and realises she doesn’t have the power to stop people talking about matters that dramatically affect, and harm, their daily lives.

“I sense the mood for change in the country and the I sense the mood for change in the Labor party,” yes indeed Ian Hunter.

PS. Ian has been supporting Rainbow Labor from the outset – good to see him follow it through to the end.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians / Uncategorized — No Comments
7
Nov 10

THE PRESSURE PILES ON IN AUSTRALIA

Anna Bligh by Michelle Smith

So let’s get this straight Julia … you are still pushing the same old lame pointless line, which defies every fibre of your background and sensibilities:
“Marriage is a union between a man and woman. We talked about this in 2009 so we can’t talk about it again until 2012.”

Get a grip. This is the era of the National Broadband Network, your government’s wonderful and wonderfully expensive attempt to get us ceaselessly connecting and creating and talking … why the hell should anyone shut up to fit in with your pointless and artificial timetables, built on your pointless and artificial political positions?

This weekend alone the most significant factional powerbroker of the governing party – Mark Arbib, and the President of the Party who also happens to be the Premier of Queensland – Anna Bligh, have come out in support of equality.

They join the most influential union leader, the Left faction of the Party, the notional holders of the balance of power in the Senate The Greens party, and 62% of the population in supporting gay marriage. Around 80% want a debate that the Prime Minister refuses to have.

It wouldn’t surprise me for a second if you and Penny Wong, the Cabinet’s lone lesbian, cling for dear life to the official line … but this is one tragedy whose ending can still be re-written.

The LABOR Government does not need to be on the same side on bitter grandpas, busy-body bigots, religious fanatics, and the slothfully ignorant and close-minded.   It can join all of the reasonable people like the million gays and lesbians and their millions of friends and supporters and do what Labor Governments are supposed to do:  support the vulnerable, the unequal, the unfairly treated.

For f*ck’s sake: get off the Titantic, Julia.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians / Surprising Marriage Equality Supporters — No Comments
6
Nov 10

ARBIB THE GREAT

Labor gay marriage supporter Mark Arbib

RIGHT-WING Australian Labor minister Mark Arbib has declared his party’s policy against gay marriage must change to allow same-sex couples to marry.

This has massive ramifications for internal Labor politics. First his words: “If I was the parent of a gay son or daughter I don’t know how I could tell them they didn’t have the same rights as I do.”

The consequences:  Arbib has just declared open season on the Labor’s party nonsensical position against equality. He is the prime powerbroker in the biggest state and the biggest faction of the Government. He was key to the change of Prime Minister earlier in 2010, and his support matches that of the head of the Left wing, Anthony Albanese.  The head of the country’s most powerful trade union, Paul Howes of the Australian Workers’ Union, also supports equality.

So you add it up; the two biggest factional powerbrokers, the most influential unionist, half of the Cabinet, 62% of the public and half of the balance of power MPs all support equality. Much greater numbers support a free and fair debate on the issue.

This is an unstable dam wall waiting to burst of Julia Gillard’s head if she insists on not getting with the program. More to the point this alliance is fundamentally right and in-tune with the deeply embedded Australian values of a ‘fair go’ for all people.

The clock is now loudly ticking on inequality.
p.s. the article is wrong on one count. Arbib is not the first ‘front-bencher’ to support equality. Anthony Albanese and Peter Garrett came out in support a long time ago.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians — 3 Comments
24
Oct 10

NUMBERS DON’T LIE; POLITICIANS DO

I never thought I’d sound so cynical about the political process … but I can’t help feeling that one of the biggest problems in the gay marriage debate in Australia, my home country,  is the number of politicians who lie or hide what they really think about the issue.

Like the 62 per cent of Australians who now say they support equality, and the 80 per cent who think there should be a free vote on the issue in Parliament, there are many politicians from all parties who agree.

But we don’t hear it.  We just hear nonsense from our left-wing, atheist, childless, unmarried, female Prime Minister.  Really – is there a set of political and lifestyle indicators more closely associated with supporting equality than Julia Gillard’s?  Frankly, no.  Never mind that 80 per cent of the people who voted for her support equality.

So what gives?

You tell me, because I can’t figure it out.  Gay marriage is more popular than Julia Gillard is – by a long way. At least two and probably three of the five cross-bench Members of Parliament would vote for it. So she isn’t going to lose government or votes. And no one is even asking for her to lead the debate. They are just wanting her to authorise one. Kind of like a democracy, ya know.

Maybe we will have wait nine years for it – that’s how long it took to have a proper debate on the war in Afghanistan after all.

Things you can do in the meantime:

- register your support here at http://www.freevote.org.au/ for a ‘conscience vote’ on the issues in the Commonwealth Parliament

- support the Green party’s national legislation on marriage equality

- find a champion in Labor or Liberal who is willing to take a risk in being the ‘voice for gay marriage’ and rallying behind that individual as they build support and decontaminate this issue inside the Parliament

Continue reading →

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians — 1 Comment
11
Oct 10

GILLARD: WE OPPOSE IT BECAUSE WE OPPOSE IT

Gillard with her boyfriend Tim Mathieson

Photo: Ray Strange, Gillard with her boyfriend

I am glad to see I am not going mad … this article from The Australian by Niki Savva, similarly fails to find Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard ever giving a reason for why she opposes gay marriage.

Yet more of my friends have now signed up to work for Ms Gillard.  And I am pretty sure all of them also support marriage equality.  So that’s an interesting gap to fill:  getting her staff to say what they really think, and getting the Prime Minister to give an actual reason why she opposes it.

Just opposing something because you do is OK for a six year old, it might have been OK in medieval times.  It just does not cut it in 21st century politics.

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Gay / Personal Stories / Politicians / Uncategorized — 7 Comments
7
Sep 10

A LETTER TO ROB OAKESHOTT

Australia now has a renewed Labor Government with the Greens holding the power in the Senate from July 2011 – which is about as good as it gets in election outcomes for marriage advocates.

In the Lower House (where the Prime Minister sits) one man was crucial to allowing Julia Gillard to reform government: Rob Oakeshott.

Here a young gay man, who grew up just an hour or so from where I grew up, has written a touching letter to Mr Oakeshott about why he should act on the needs of gay men and lesbians. This man, like so many others, felt he had to move to Sydney after being marginalised because of his sexuality in his hometown.

I hope this sparks of a major letter-writing campaign. And congratulations to this anonymous young man!
Continue reading →

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians — 5 Comments
28
Aug 10

AUSTRALIAN GREENS MUST HOLD LINE

Gillard and Brown

For a while it seemed like a bad election for Australia’s million or so gays and lesbians. Tony Abbott felt threatened by us, a Family First candidate linked gay marriage to child abuse, and Penny Wong looked weak in toeing the party line against marriage. With the Greens now potentially holding the balance of power in both houses of Parliament gay marriage has never been closer to the political centre stage.

The question concerning supporters of marriage equality is whether the Greens will reward their faith while negotiating with Labor.  Is gay marriage a core promise, we wonder? Continue reading →

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Australia / Politicians — 3 Comments
9
Aug 10

GAY MARRIAGE = CHILD ABUSE

Family First Australian Senate candidate Wendy Francis

Family First Australian Senate candidate Wendy Francis

In case you were wondering what got into the out lesbian Australian Senator Penny Wong a couple of weeks back, when she refused to support gay marriage publicly … take a look at this context.

This is the thinking on gay marriage of the lead candidate (in the key state of Queensland ) for the Family First party that holds the balance of power in the Australian Senate:
“Australia would never recover from legalising gay marriage … Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse. Legitimising gay marriages is like legalizing child abuse“   and  “Gay marriage = kids with no mothers or no fathers, parent-less generation; uncontrollable depression & suicide. Is that the Aust we want?”

The racist party One Nation also announced this week that we all need rehab for being gay.  That doesn’t make the Australian Labor Party’s weakness on marriage equalityOK – they are actually out of step with a slim majority of Australians.  But at least now you can see what they are having to deal with in Parliament to achieve any of their agenda!

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

Europe / Politicians / Surprising Marriage Equality Supporters — No Comments
8
Aug 10

UK INCHES TOWARDS EQUALITY

Another day, another step. The junior partners in the UK Coalition Government will today vote to support full marriage equality. The Conservative senior coalition partners are open to but noncommittal about marriage law changes.

With David Cameron thinking about equality and others like Arnold Schwarzenegger and heavily Catholic Argentina and Portugal taking the equality leap, it makes the position of self-styled human rights champions like the Australian Labor Government and the secular French presidency quite ridiculous.

Why on earth are they prepared to give up this political space?

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →