Last week, the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, sought to take the heat out of the gay marriage issue. In an opinion piece in the Fairfax press, she announced she would offer Labor MPs a conscience vote if a private member’s bill was presented. In the same article, the PM supported a recommendation from the 2010 National Review of the Labor Party to trial a new preselection process designed to engage the community.
These two interventions are connected, in ways few have noticed. To understand how, we must start with the conscience vote. Between 1950 and 2007, the Australian Parliament settled 32 questions with conscience votes. Many of these were social issues, or the personal medical ones that so preoccupy the Christian church. They included votes on family law, marriage, sexual relationships, including gay relationships, and abortion. The five most recent, held during the Howard years, canvassed euthanasia, stem-cell research and the abortion drug RU486.
In recent years, there’s been a disconnect between the public’s view on such issues and those of our elected representatives. More than 80 per cent of Australians support dying with dignity, but in 1996, the bid for legal voluntary euthanasia was soundly defeated.
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