The dominant Victorian arm of the National Union of Workers has formally resolved to back progressive ALP delegates in their conference fight with Julia Gillard over gay marriage, drawing the Left to within striking distance of slapping down the prime minister’s preference for a self-defeating conscience vote.
Crikey can reveal that at a high-level meeting of NUW delegates held last night at the union’s Docklands offices, the seven-strong group formally resolved to vote to remove references to John Howard’s Marriage Act from the party’s platform and object to the PM’s conscience cop-out which would effectively keep gay nuptials outlawed in league with Tony Abbott.
To prevent any change to the status-quo and placate the religious Right, the PM is gunning for a re-write of party rules to allow a conscience vote while retaining the draft platform’s current discriminatory references. In the interests of solidarity, Labor currently only allows free votes in the case of abortion (broadly interpreted as pertaining to “issues of life”).
But last night’s decision binds the NUW’s seven delegates to the position of the National Left’s 177 disciples who are broadly committed to rejecting both the conscience proposal and the retention of the clause that states same-sex policy must be formed with reference to the Act.
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