It’s 6am. My alarm has gone off and the radio is playing Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe. I sit up in bed: I’m Bill Murray as a weatherman experiencing the same day over and over again.
No, wait. That’s the plot to the movie Groundhog Day.
It’s also an appropriate way to describe my feelings when I heard that the government has come up with yet another bright idea to delay a vote on marriage equality.
This time, the idea is a plebiscite by postal vote. Groundhog Day: Marriage Equality. It’s an idea that is being pushed in large part by Queensland Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan and immigration minister Peter Dutton.
But don’t worry; it’s not just them. Nationals MP George Christensen, Tony Abbott and the Australian Christian Lobby’s Lyle Shelton also think the idea has merit. What do these men all have in common? It’s impossible to say. But you could probably decide whether it is a noble and impartial idea, given the only people supporting it all have the same opinion about marriage equality. (Hint: they do not want it to happen).
I mean really, are we doing this again? We banished the Turnbull government’s terrible idea for a plebiscite. Now we are expected to entertain this even more terrible idea that is a watered-down version of the initial terrible idea?
The original non-postal plebiscite idea was criticised for being expensive, unnecessary, unbinding, and likely to cause an anti-equality campaign that could be damaging to the mental health of vulnerable LGBTQI kids.
The postal vote version of this must be criticised for all those exact same things. For example, in timing of epic proportions, Slade Brockman (not a fake name), an incoming West Australian Liberal senator revealed this week that he will be ignoring the result of any plebiscite, and voting no to marriage equality regardless.
That is the inevitability of a non-binding plebiscite. If the result is not the one desired, the people who are unhappy with the result can simply boycott it. At its very core, it is meaningless.
In addition to having all of the bad parts of the original plebiscite idea, a postal plebiscite has new and exciting pitfalls. It’s like breaking up with someone because of their array of horrible qualities, and then dating someone with all of those same qualities – and finding out they also hate puppies.
The postal vote, being unbinding and voluntary, is essentially an expensive and messy glorified opinion poll on the issue of marriage equality. But we already know what the opinions are. Australians want marriage equality, or at the very least want a free vote on the issue, including the majority of Dutton’s own electorate. Awkward.
The postal vote is also likely to be less accurate than opinion polls, because it is going to be less representative. A non-compulsory vote is always going to mobilise a small but fervent minority who will froth at the mouth at the thought of participating in a vote to stop progress.
And a non-compulsory postal vote will have an inherent bias against the “yes” side because a large group of people who would vote that way are what we call “young people”. The youth are not exactly known for their love of using snail mail. I am in my 30s and cannot remember the last time I purchased a stamp – but at least I know what a stamp is. Millennials probably think mailboxes are a flagged meeting point for elderly ABC viewers.
But if a plebiscite of some sort must be held, and the people of Australia must be asked, because it is the “fair thing to do” – then I say we ditch the postal vote idea and take this baby to Instagram.
Instead of expecting everyone to fill out a form and find a letterbox, let’s have everyone download an app and press a button to vote. It’s accessible, it’s easy, and even my grandmother has a phone. It’s as binding as a postal vote, and it’s as meaningful as a postal vote. Press one love heart = one vote for marriage equality. It’s beautiful.
Can you really trust the postal system with something so serious anyway? It doesn’t make sense that someone could, on one hand, believe that marriage equality could bring down society as we know it – and yet, on the other hand, be happy with our very future decided by popping an envelope holding a form into a red box to go who knows where.
Surely even the most homophobic people out there must see how cruel and unusual it would be to put the fate of the LGBTQI community in the hands of Australia Post. Have some mercy.
Or we could just ditch the idea of a plebiscite altogether, and have the cheap, fair, reliable, quick and decisive democratic free vote that we deserve.
