Australian same-sex marriage survey 'completely unnecessary,' says activist
Australians can start voting this week in what's being called a "postal vote" on same-sex marriage. Around sixteen million paper ballots are being mailed to homes across Australia by the country's Bureau of Statistics.
The survey is non-binding and non-compulsory, but both the yes and the no sides are in full campaign mode.
Sally Rugg is campaign director with the social activist group GetUp! She spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about the vote and why she thinks it will fail to deliver an accurate representation of public opinion on same-sex marriage.
Ms. Rugg, what's at stake in this plebiscite?
There's so much at stake. ... Not only is it finally allowing loving same-sex couples to marry each other and recognizing those families as equal under the law, but this huge public exercise — if it returned a no vote — I think it would a devastating blow, not only for the LGBTI community, but for the Australia we're trying to create together.
But they are saying it's a non-binding vote, so why does it matter so much?
The government we have at this stage has said that if the postal vote returns a yes result, they will then move to hold a vote on the floor of parliament. But if it returns a no result, they have committed to not taking action on marriage equality for the foreseeable future.
And how reliable will this postal vote be as a gauge of public opinion about same-sex marriage in Australia?
We've been really concerned about the legitimacy of the postal vote. Mostly around issues of voter enfranchisement because there's a lot of young people and Indigenous people and newly arrived migrants who aren't on the electoral roll.
We did a huge campaign around enfranchising these people and we did see a big bump. But there's also the issue of posting a letter. I mean, I'm 29 and I can't remember the last time I posted a letter.
Getting those young people on the roll and motivating them to put their postal vote back in the letterbox is a big challenge. Those sorts of barriers to participating in this vote is what is making us most concerned.
Why do they even need to do a plebiscite at all? I mean, people in parliament are elected, can't they make the decision themselves based on what they know of their constituents — the values of their parties? Why does it have to be turned over to this vote?
Carol, you're repeating the question that has been on the lips of nearly every single Australian for the past two years.
The short answer is it comes down to factions within our coalition government, which is a right-wing government. The back bench of our government don't want action on marriage equality and have the numbers to keep that from happening.
A plebiscite, as you said, it's completely unnecessary as we have the numbers in parliament. We also have support from the prime minister, the general public. It's unbinding. It's going to be very expensive. It was first proposed two years ago and we've been fighting it for the last two years, including taking it to the high court, and now it's being forced upon us.
What kind of climate has this survey created and controversy around the issue of same-sex marriage?
There's a lot of tensions between yes voters and no voters. We have started to see the really ugly advertising campaigns and just general conversations around the legitimacy of LGBTI relationships.
But also, we've seen this completely incredible groundswell of public energy behind the yes campaign. Just on Sunday, here in Sydney, we had the largest rally for marriage equality ever seen in Australia with up to 40,000 people there. There are many people within the LGBTI community, myself included, who are witnessing an increase in personal attacks and ugly graffiti and violence. Our former prime minister's godson was beaten up yesterday afternoon so that's all over the news this morning. So it's tense and it's divisive and really could have been avoided.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. For more on this story, listen to our full interview with Sally Rugg.