Labor and the Greens will ask the Turnbull government to legislate the “strongest possible” protections against vilification in the same-sex marriage postal survey, after the high court ruled it can proceed on Thursday.
The ambit claims go far further than the Coalition’s proposal to protect the survey by extending only basic electoral law provisions on authorisation of ads and banning misleading information about the process of voting, fraud, bribery and intimidation.
Although all parties urged Australians to take part in the survey, Canberra received the news the survey will proceed with partisan notes including Malcolm Turnbull refusing to co-sign a letter with Bill Shorten to urge a yes vote and Shorten urging Turnbull “lead not hide” in the campaign.
Acting special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, said the government would “move swiftly” to enact a new law to set ground rules for the campaign, with negotiations with Labor and the Greens over the weekend and the bill brought to parliament next week.
At a doorstop in Canberra, Shorten said the survey is “not adequately protecting people’s rights” because it did not protect people “from abuse and some of the sort of vile conduct and argument we’ve seen legitimised”.
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said Labor would work with the government but the safeguards should be “as strong as they can possibly be”.
“There should be protections that – as far as possible – send a message to the Australian community that this parliament as a whole will not tolerate vilification of any group in the Australian community, and that’s what we’re expecting the legislation to contain,” he said.
Dreyfus said the Electoral Act did not go far enough and was inappropriate for “an absolutely unprecedented, unusual, unnecessary, postal survey”. “But we’ll see what the government is prepared to go with.”
The Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, said it was “very clear we need to have the strongest possible protections for people who are going to be subjected to what’s going to be in some elements of the community an awful campaign”.
Cormann hosed down suggestions of more extensive “truth in advertising” type protections, explaining the government would “seek to align the protections” with requirements for ordinary elections, including authorisations “so that everyone can clearly identify who is responsible for particular communication”.
“There are, in the Electoral Act, provisions that deal with misleading and deceptive conduct but that has been interpreted by the high court in the past relating to misleading and deceptive communication that would essentially get the voter to fill out the ballot paper in an erroneous way.”
Homophobic material that has already surfaced in the campaign included materials labelling homosexuality a “curse of death” and falsely claiming 92% of children of gay parents suffer abuse.
The no side has complained about the Dads4Kids’ father’s day ad requiring a political authorisation, and a petition, since taken down, to review the medical qualification of no campaigner, Pansy Lai.
In question time, Malcolm Turnbull said every adult Australian will be able to have their say on the issue of same-sex marriage.
“Lucy [Turnbull] and I will be voting yes and I will be encouraging others to vote yes, but ... above all, I encourage every Australian to have their say because unlike the leader of the opposition I respect every Australian’s view on this matter,” he said.
When Shorten proposed a joint letter with the prime minister to all Australians recommending a yes vote in the survey, Turnbull questioned whether the exercise would “actually increase the case for the yes vote”.
“The leader of the opposition can make his case and I’ll make mine,” he said.
Turnbull accused Shorten of having done “everything he could” to stop the plebiscite. “Much to his disappointment, now every Australian will have their say.”
At his press conference, Shorten said he hoped Turnbull was “fair dinkum” about campaigning for the yes case.
“It’s one thing to say that you support marriage equality but when you have a position of leadership in this country, you should lead, not hide,” he said.
“I encourage Malcolm Turnbull to be fair dinkum and actively campaign, to genuinely use the status of his office, the status of prime minister, to encourage a yes vote.”
Noting an earlier statement from Turnbull that he had other calls on his time that may preclude him from campaigning, Shorten said that was not leadership, that is a “retreat ... abdication [and] chronic weakness”.
The Greens LGBTI spokeswoman, Janet Rice, said now the survey was going ahead there was a “clear pathway” that could result in “wedding bells ringing in our society for LGBTIQ” by Christmas.
