The upper house of the NSW Parliament has narrowly voted down a bill to legalise same-sex marriage.
Despite initial hopes the upper house would pass the legislation, MPs voted against it by 21 votes to 19 in the Legislative Council on Thursday afternoon.
‘There was essentially one vote in it.
Independent MP Alex Greenwich, a member of the cross-party working group who devised the bill, said he took heart from the closeness of the vote. ”There was essentially one vote in it,” Mr Greenwich said.
Mr Greenwich, who is the member for Sydney in the lower house and therefore did not participate in the vote, said it was the first time Coalition MPs had voted in favour of a same sex marriage bill in Australia.
Liberals Catherine Cusack and Greg Pearce and Nationals Sarah Mitchell and Trevor Khan supported the bill.
”It’s shown the effectiveness of cross-party co-operation,” Mr Greenwich said.
However, Christian Democratic Party MP the Reverend Fred Nile, who campaigned against the legislation, said the outcome was ”a great victory for marriage in the NSW upper house”.
Mr Nile said he believed a decisive factor in the bill’s defeat was Premier Barry O’Farrell’s announcement that he would vote against the bill if it came before the lower house.
Mr O’Farrell revealed his support for same-sex marriage a day after New Zealand’s parliament voted to change its national laws in April.
But in a statement released the night before the bill’s introduction to the upper house last month, Mr O’Farrell said that while he was a supporter of marriage equality, he would not support the NSW legislation.
He argued that “only change enacted by the Federal Parliament can deliver true equality in our marriage laws”.
After Thursday’s vote, Mr Nile revealed he had urged Mr O’Farrell to make the statement.
”It certainly had an effect on some Coalition members and that was the reason I asked him to issue the statement,” he said.
”It was important for the Premier to make a stand, indicate where he stood on this issue. He was a bit reluctant, but he finally agreed to make that public statement.
And it did have the effect I was hoping it would have on some of the wavering members of the Coalition.”
The Liberal MP for Coogee, Bruce Notley-Smith, another cross-party group member in the lower house, said a key consideration for many MPs was the prospect of change in the federal Parliament.
”Many members gave their reason for not voting in the upper house as [their belief] that marriage is a federal matter,” he said.
”I think there’s also a feeling among members that there will be movement at a federal level. They feel the tide is turning in their favour.”
But Mr Khan – also a cross-party working group member – said the argument that same-sex marriage was better legislated federally was ”a cop out”.
”I find it difficult to accept that people are being asked to wait at the back of the bus for a little longer because somebody’s saying there’s going to be a Mercedes bus coming down the road in another five or 10 years’ time,” he said.
Labor MP Penny Sharpe, who introduced the bill, said it was ”the best bill that has been put forward across Australia”.
The cross-party working group had received legal advice the bill would survive a challenge in the High Court, such as the one brought by the Commonwealth against the ACT’s same sex marriage laws.
”That the vote was so close bodes well for the future of marriage equality in NSW,” she said.
Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi said the closeness of the vote was disappointing.
”It shows MPs’ views are aligning much more closely with the community’s views and it’s only a matter of time until we get marriage equality,” she said.
Photo: James Alcock & Peter Rae
Author: Sean Nicholls
Publication: The Sydney Morning Herald
Date: 14 November 2013
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