Cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos has quoted Labor powerbroker Don Farrell’s intention to change his vote on marriage equality to justify the Coalition’s position on a plebiscite, saying sometimes party members have to compromise in order to keep a unified party position.
The new deputy Labor leader in the Senate, Farrell, told the Sunday Telegraph he would vote for marriage equality in the parliament even though he supported the traditional view of marriage between a man and a woman.
Farrell is a powerful member of the right within Labor so his declaration ends any doubt that remaining opposition from the right could challenge a binding vote – leaving Labor free to capitalise on the split within the Coalition leading up to the next election.
“Quite simply, I am a supporter of traditional marriage. I’ve stuck to that position,’’ he told journalist Samantha Maiden. “This was a compromise position reached and I accept the decisions of the Labor party. I’ve been a member for 40 years.”
Sinodinos said the Coalition would continue to pursue the plebiscite even though Labor has signalled it will vote against it.
“[Farrell] talked about the fact that he accepted as part of a compromise that he would not necessarily be able to exercise his conscience in the way he wanted to as part of an agreement with the Labor party about the handling of this matter,” Sinodinos said.
“The fact is in all political parties from time to time you have to make agreements so you can keep the party position as one. That’s what Labor have done, that’s what we have done and what we are asking the Senate is to keep us to our promises.”
Malcolm Turnbull is a well known supporter of marriage equality and a free vote in parliament rather than a plebiscite but has been forced to advocate for Tony Abbott’s plebiscite under pressure from the conservative wing of his party.
Sinodinos said there was “a lot of hypocrisy in politics” and called on the Labor party to “keep us to our promises” on the plebiscite.
He said even though Labor would block the bill, “the plan B, D, D, E is to keep persisting with getting this through the Senate”.
But Labor doubled down on Turnbull and his fellow Liberal moderates over the issue, with deputy leader Tanya Plibersek calling on the Coalition to back the prime minister on his “issue of principle” and allow a free vote in parliament.
Labor’s leader in the Senate Penny Wong called on leading moderates such as the education minister, Simon Birmingham, to change the party position from within to back a free vote.
The bill to enable a plebiscite on 11 February remains in the lower house but since Labor intends to vote against the legislation, it has little hope of passing the upper house. It cannot go to the Senate until 7 November at the earliest.
This leaves the issue of marriage equality locked in a stalemate and Labor is calling on Turnbull to allow a free vote – a prospect that conservatives such as National MPs Andrew Broad and George Christensen have warned the PM against.
Plibersek called on the Coalition to support its leader and allow him to follow his “heart” to allow a free vote on the issue. Turnbull has repeatedly refused to rule out a free vote in the parliament since Labor signalled it would vote down the plebiscite bill.
“He has got a rabble of a Liberal party, they vote against themselves for the first time in the history of Australia … they run out of business in the Senate, they go home early and now they are going to roll a prime minister because he wants to do what’s in his heart,” Plibersek told Sky’s Paul Kelly.
“[Turnbull] has said before he supports a free vote in the parliament. He should be allowed as prime minister to do what his heart and his head is the right thing.”
Asked whether Labor was asking Turnbull to do something that would cost him the prime ministership, Plibersek said “sure, but that is his problem”.
“Even if it costs him his job?” Kelly asked.
“No, they should back their prime minister on an issue of principle for him.”
Wong said leading moderates in the cabinet such as Birmingham were working to change his party’s position within the party. Wong previously advocated for her party’s position against marriage equality as recently as 2010 because she was bound by caucus to support Labor policy.
Asked why she argued in 2010 that cultural and historical objections should be respected, Wong said it was her party’s position.
“I don’t think anybody watching the last seven years of this debate … would suggest I had not worked along with Anthony [Albanese], Tanya [Plibersek], to change the position of the party.”
“Simon Birmingham is in the position I was. When you are a cabinet minister, you are bound to support the position but what you should do – and I did – and he is, is change the position because the position is wrong.”
