17 minutes ago, hardtack said:

Not to mention that an overwhelming YES vote sends a loud and clear message to the govt that they had better not mess up the legislation; otherwise it could see them back in opposition at the next election.

I find this whole debate infuriating. Climate change, immigration, indigenous affairs - there are so many sides to these issues - they are not black and white and for every one argument you can bring up on these issues there are counter arguments ( whether you agree with them or not) that warrant consideration. This is such a non issue that affects one part of the community and one part of the community only. This law could have been passed 10 years ago and the only impact on my life would have been a couple more wedding invitations. 

One needs to ask why are we even having a plebiscite ? Anyone who say so Australians can have their say are kidding themselves. This was an Abbott invention to delay and muddy the debate. If anyone wants to stick to the argument of a say for all Australians, I will bring up safe school programs  - thanks for bringing that red herring into the debate wrecker - anyone care to explain to me why we are having a plebiscite on an issue that affects such a small segment of the population yet safe school program which affects all our youth at school we have zero say in ? That issue is left to the pollies to handle. The plebescite has been brought in purely as a political strategy designed to give the best chance of failure. It has had far from overwhelming support from the party that is meant to be championing it. 

It should have always been a free vote in parliament - that's what those bozos are elected and paid to do - understand the will of the people who voted for them and enact.

2 hours ago, Jara said:

That said, I do think Turnbull was pathetic in bringing on the vote without giving details of the legislation. Left the yes-side wide open for abuse, misinterpretation and fear-mongering. Bit like Howard and the Republican referendum.

 

Not that Turnbull really gives a sh*&t. HIs overwhelming interests are money, power and self-aggrandisement. 

Turnbulls predicament is of Turnbulls making  - instead of waiting a little longer for Abbott to totally implode and have his party begging for him to to take the  leadership, he went early and had to do deals with the Bernadi's of the world to get the top gig -those deals included no free vote on gay marriage, climate change policy and the republic. 

 

On more detail on legislation for SSM you are damned if you do, damned if you don't and the Howard strategy on the republic was a perfect example. Instead of Howard asking "do you want the queen removed as head of state" which may have got a majority yes vote , he went with asking if people wanted a republic and outlining the model. Do you remember the main reason that came out for the defeat ? The model was that president would be elected by a 2/3rds majority of parliament - that would have made it bipartisan. People rejected that saying we want to directly elect our president. So we have a system now that our prime minister who does some  wield power ( although legislation must get through both Houses of Parliament ) who is not elected by the people - Keating, Turnbull, Rudd mark 2, Gillard mark 1 to name a few, but the public got up in arms about not being able to directly elect a president whose role was ceremonial. Mindnumbingly stupid. It was a referendum set up by Howard that was brilliantly designed to fail.

1 hour ago, nutbean said:

I find this whole debate infuriating. Climate change, immigration, indigenous affairs - there are so many sides to these issues - they are not black and white and for every one argument you can bring up on these issues there are counter arguments ( whether you agree with them or not) that warrant consideration. This is such a non issue that affects one part of the community and one part of the community only. This law could have been passed 10 years ago and the only impact on my life would have been a couple more wedding invitations.

I genuinely cannot think of one valid counter argument against same sex marriage, unless you want to suggest that it introduces the added inconvenience of divorce.

I firmly believe that people of all sexual orientations have the right to be married and as miserable as I am.....

21 hours ago, nutbean said:

Turnbulls predicament is of Turnbulls making  - instead of waiting a little longer for Abbott to totally implode and have his party begging for him to to take the  leadership, he went early and had to do deals with the Bernadi's of the world to get the top gig -those deals included no free vote on gay marriage, climate change policy and the republic. 

 

On more detail on legislation for SSM you are damned if you do, damned if you don't and the Howard strategy on the republic was a perfect example. Instead of Howard asking "do you want the queen removed as head of state" which may have got a majority yes vote , he went with asking if people wanted a republic and outlining the model. Do you remember the main reason that came out for the defeat ? The model was that president would be elected by a 2/3rds majority of parliament - that would have made it bipartisan. People rejected that saying we want to directly elect our president. So we have a system now that our prime minister who does some  wield power ( although legislation must get through both Houses of Parliament ) who is not elected by the people - Keating, Turnbull, Rudd mark 2, Gillard mark 1 to name a few, but the public got up in arms about not being able to directly elect a president whose role was ceremonial. Mindnumbingly stupid. It was a referendum set up by Howard that was brilliantly designed to fail.

Yes, all of this is correct. What I personally found most annoying about it was the number of commentators who thought it demonstrated that Howard was some kind of genius political operator.  

 

Gimme a break. It was a blatant cynical move, demonstrative of nothing but a complete lack of vision. Since when did appealing to the ignorance of the electorate stamp you as some kind of genius? 

4 hours ago, Jara said:

Yes, all of this is correct. What I personally found most annoying about it was the number of commentators who thought it demonstrated that Howard was some kind of genius political operator.  

 

Gimme a break. It was a blatant cynical move, demonstrative of nothing but a complete lack of vision. Since when did appealing to the ignorance of the electorate stamp you as some kind of genius? 

Disagree. I think you are confusing motivation with implementation. Getting your agenda passed into legislation or policy which you don't like thwarted is a skill no matter how repugnant you may find the stance. 

Howard worked out the best way to defeat the referendum  on the republic was to give the electorate too much information and lock them into one position only. He set up the referendum to fail. You can call it cynical, lacking in vision and appealing to the ignorance of the electorate  - but did it work  ?

As much i disliked the outcome I cannot back away from suggesting that Howard was a clever political operator. 

Contrast this to the plebiscite - i read an article about the gnashing of teeth from some within the liberal party about an unintended consequence of this plebiscite. There were a multitude of 18 - 21 year olds that were not registered to vote and apparently have little interest in politics (Turnbull v Shorten etc). However they have been galvanised by this single issue and there was over 100,000 plus new registrants to vote which also means that these same 100,000 plus who in all likelihood will not be liberal voters will now be voting in the next general election. The Libs are apparently not happy about this unintended consequence. This is an example of dumb politics. 

 

Confusing motivation with implementation?

I know the difference. Not sure I was talking about either. I was criticising Howard's lack of vision. He would take a very narrow, self-centred view of a topic and was incapable of seeing its wider ramifications. The republic debate was one example. His view? Monarchy has served us well in the past, why change it? No imagination, no understanding of the benefits that the surge of confidence that could come from our country finally growing up might bring. His criticism of the "black armband" interpretation of history was another. You can praise prosperity, "progress", enlightenment, etc - as much as you like - but how can you ignore the fact that this prosperity was bought with the blood of the original inhabitants?  

 

The most outrageous example of Howard's blindness , of course, was invading Iraq. That showed a Stevie-Wonderish lack of vision. Saudi jihadists hit New York so he attacks ...er..Iraq? The most secular state in the Middle East? What a moron. We are living with the consequences of that idiotic decision every day. Because of my work, I've come to know hundreds of Muslims over the years. They have a wide variety of attitudes and aspirations, but one thing I often notice is their belief that Islam is under attack and the example they most commonly give is the invasion of Iraq.  Bush, Howard and Blair - two idiots and a slime ball.

Person A: "I demand the right to (do X). I ALSO demand that Person B NOT have the right to (do X)."

There aren't many circumstances in which Person A is in the right to think this way. At its heart, it's really just monstrously selfish.

 

5 hours ago, Jara said:

Confusing motivation with implementation?

I know the difference. Not sure I was talking about either. I was criticising Howard's lack of vision. He would take a very narrow, self-centred view of a topic and was incapable of seeing its wider ramifications. The republic debate was one example. His view? Monarchy has served us well in the past, why change it? No imagination, no understanding of the benefits that the surge of confidence that could come from our country finally growing up might bring. His criticism of the "black armband" interpretation of history was another. You can praise prosperity, "progress", enlightenment, etc - as much as you like - but how can you ignore the fact that this prosperity was bought with the blood of the original inhabitants?  

 

The most outrageous example of Howard's blindness , of course, was invading Iraq. That showed a Stevie-Wonderish lack of vision. Saudi jihadists hit New York so he attacks ...er..Iraq? The most secular state in the Middle East? What a moron. We are living with the consequences of that idiotic decision every day. Because of my work, I've come to know hundreds of Muslims over the years. They have a wide variety of attitudes and aspirations, but one thing I often notice is their belief that Islam is under attack and the example they most commonly give is the invasion of Iraq.  Bush, Howard and Blair - two idiots and a slime ball.

You point was that you didn't think that Howard was a good political operator.

 

I don't disagree with anything you have said above but irrespective of his vision, his views, his motivations he managed to sell this vision to Australian public for a long period of time and get his legislation passed. I both vehemently disagreed with most of what Howard stood for and recognise his political skill for being able to sell his agenda and get it passed.

2 hours ago, bananas said:

Person A: "I demand the right to (do X). I ALSO demand that Person B NOT have the right to (do X)."

There aren't many circumstances in which Person A is in the right to think this way. At its heart, it's really just monstrously selfish.

 

You could go one step further and say that the Person B not have the right to do X even though it has no impact on me whatsoever.

I will repeat this to anyone who will listen  - if one truly has a strong objection to same sex marriage then i encourage them to protest in the strongest way possible by not getting married to someone of the same sex - job done.

uncle bitters sent in his vote in a hurry. only later did he learn it wasn't the S&M vote

2 hours ago, nutbean said:

You point was that you didn't think that Howard was a good political operator.

 

I don't disagree with anything you have said above but irrespective of his vision, his views, his motivations he managed to sell this vision to Australian public for a long period of time and get his legislation passed. I both vehemently disagreed with most of what Howard stood for and recognise his political skill for being able to sell his agenda and get it passed.

I said I didn't think he was "a genius political operator". I presume he was a competent political operator - sure - that's how he stayed in power for so long. But genius? That implies some sort of higher-level ability that I never saw any evidence of him having. I suppose what kept him in power for so long was his recognition of the fact that you can suck up a lot of swinging voters by appealing to their baser instincts - ie Howard's battlers. Trump's done the same thing.

On 15/09/2017 at 10:13 PM, KingDingAling said:

That is the thing. If we don't know what a yes vote will mean for legislation, and the effects it will have, then we vote NO. When I say 'we' - I mean anyone with any common sense.

Another revelation in the "interview", was Abbott's claim that had he survived as prime minister, he would he have asked the same-sex marriage lobby to draft its preferred reform bill, and then would have simply put that bill to the people. Not a yes/no binary as in the current survey, but a nationwide plebiscite on the legislation itself, with all its complexities.

Former Liberal leader and proud constitutional monarchist, Brendan Nelson, who intends to vote "yes" by the way, knows exactly what that was designed to achieve.

As he told the National Press Club on Tuesday, if you want to stop a change happening, make the argument about the process.

 

 

3 hours ago, nutbean said:

Another revelation in the "interview", was Abbott's claim that had he survived as prime minister, he would he have asked the same-sex marriage lobby to draft its preferred reform bill, and then would have simply put that bill to the people. Not a yes/no binary as in the current survey, but a nationwide plebiscite on the legislation itself, with all its complexities.

Former Liberal leader and proud constitutional monarchist, Brendan Nelson, who intends to vote "yes" by the way, knows exactly what that was designed to achieve.

As he told the National Press Club on Tuesday, if you want to stop a change happening, make the argument about the process.

 

 

And Cory Bernardi said that the current survey without detail is a "blank cheque" to the parliament. I agree with him. Not that it really matters what I think. The vote will go ahead regardless of what you or I think. I don't see much point wasting too much time arguing on the net over it, other than to say I would vote NO. Have a good day and good luck with your vote in the future.

I would suspect that the enabling legislation will just be to cross out the words "a man and a woman" in the Marriage Act, and substitute "two people".

The "traditional marriage" supporters just want to continually lead the argument up side streets, blind alleys and dead ends.

2 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

And Cory Bernardi said that the current survey without detail is a "blank cheque" to the parliament. I agree with him. Not that it really matters what I think. The vote will go ahead regardless of what you or I think. I don't see much point wasting too much time arguing on the net over it, other than to say I would vote NO. Have a good day and good luck with your vote in the future.

I will suggest that once you even begin to look and post on demonland we are all wasting our time.

I'll just rephrase a question again.

How do you feel about voting in any general election where politicians make general policy promises without us having any idea on how they will legislate (and in many cases break these promises so there is no legislation at all). Do you vote for anyone or do you abstain as you don't like voting for "blank cheques" ? 

4 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

And Cory Bernardi said that the current survey without detail is a "blank cheque" to the parliament.....

Is that the same Corey Bernardi who  campaigned and got elected as a liberal senator and then after the election decided he really didn't want to be a liberal so is now sitting in parliament that he got elected to on promises to voters that he believes  longer has to keep ?  I would think that makes Mr Bernardi well qualified to comment  on blank cheques.

Is that the same Cory Bernardi  that is on record as saying months before it was known how the plebecite would look  that whatever result the plebiscite returns he will vote no irrespective ? 

 

I am still waiting for my ballot papers! Maybe they are just assuming everyone in Fitzroy will be voting yes? 

On 16/09/2017 at 9:14 AM, Jara said:

That said, I do think Turnbull was pathetic in bringing on the vote without giving details of the legislation. Left the yes-side wide open for abuse, misinterpretation and fear-mongering. Bit like Howard and the Republican referendum.

 

Not that Turnbull really gives a sh*&t. HIs overwhelming interests are money, power and self-aggrandisement. 

Think Turnbull not Howard. Turnbull ruined every chance of Australia becoming a Republic and he is doing a good job of ruining marriage equality. Time will tell.

 

On 16/09/2017 at 8:10 AM, nutbean said:

So by this wonderful logic I presume you never vote in any election ? After all politicians and parties don't tell us what their legislation will look like - they campaign on broad brush policy. The whole notion of how this simple act of allowing same sex marriage age will affect things like "safe schools" is such a nonsensical argument. This safe schools legislation is not tied at the hip to same sex marriage and has already had movement and purported changes independent of the same sex marriage vote. All we are being asked to do is vote on same sex marriage. Any other issues like safe schools and religious freedoms (or any issue for that matter) may or may not be brought up in parliament and may or may not be enacted. 

Do you personally support the safe schools program nut?

On 16/09/2017 at 11:42 AM, nutbean said:

I find this whole debate infuriating. Climate change, immigration, indigenous affairs - there are so many sides to these issues - they are not black and white and for every one argument you can bring up on these issues there are counter arguments ( whether you agree with them or not) that warrant consideration. This is such a non issue that affects one part of the community and one part of the community only. This law could have been passed 10 years ago and the only impact on my life would have been a couple more wedding invitations. 

One needs to ask why are we even having a plebiscite ? Anyone who say so Australians can have their say are kidding themselves. This was an Abbott invention to delay and muddy the debate. If anyone wants to stick to the argument of a say for all Australians, I will bring up safe school programs  - thanks for bringing that red herring into the debate wrecker - anyone care to explain to me why we are having a plebiscite on an issue that affects such a small segment of the population yet safe school program which affects all our youth at school we have zero say in ? That issue is left to the pollies to handle. The plebescite has been brought in purely as a political strategy designed to give the best chance of failure. It has had far from overwhelming support from the party that is meant to be championing it. 

It should have always been a free vote in parliament - that's what those bozos are elected and paid to do - understand the will of the people who voted for them and enact.

only a delusion lefty could think a plebiscite ie. asking for the peoples will was Abbott's invention to muddy the waters. Penny Wong in the previous Government is quoted as saying she believed marriage should be between a man and a women and so did Gillard. Abbott promised to give the people a say which was the greatest push towards ssm since Federation.

On 19/09/2017 at 10:47 AM, bananas said:

Person A: "I demand the right to (do X). I ALSO demand that Person B NOT have the right to (do X)."

There aren't many circumstances in which Person A is in the right to think this way. At its heart, it's really just monstrously selfish.

 

A very poor example. Everybody has the same rights under the marriage act. Any man can marry any women homosexual, heterosexual or any other of the new gay lesbian, transsexual terms I'm not familiar with.

Person B wants to marry someone outside of the existing act and biology.

12 hours ago, mauriesy said:

I would suspect that the enabling legislation will just be to cross out the words "a man and a woman" in the Marriage Act, and substitute "two people".

The "traditional marriage" supporters just want to continually lead the argument up side streets, blind alleys and dead ends.

I suspect when the legislation is drawn up it won't be to just to cross out the words a man and a women and substitute "two people". Would you like a bet?

7 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

only a delusion lefty could think a plebiscite ie. asking for the peoples will was Abbott's invention to muddy the waters. Penny Wong in the previous Government is quoted as saying she believed marriage should be between a man and a women and so did Gillard. Abbott promised to give the people a say which was the greatest push towards ssm since Federation.

Wow... do you not read a newspaper ? Abbott had major opposition within his own party to the plebiscite that he so gleefully promoted and since you are so adept at throwing around epitaphs - only a rusted only righty would see this plebiscite as anything but a crude attempt to confuse and delay.

What on earth does Wong's and Gillard's change of view have to do with this argument. I have not been railing against the right to have a yes or no view or to change it. I have been angered by ridiculous side issues being brought into the debate (like this one) and more importantly the mechanism - ie the plebiscite.

Ill ask you a simple question. Do you not see the total futility of holding a plebiscite that is non binding and for the law to be changed parliamentarians have to vote on legislation anyway. Some of these parliamentarians even before the result of the plebiscite is known have already said that they will vote they way they want to vote irrespective of the result ? The people may have a say but it counts for nothing as this is non binding.  It is not a say - it is nothing more than an opinion that parliamentarians can and will ignore, 

It should be a free vote in parliament - end of story. 

7 hours ago, Wrecker45 said:

A very poor example. Everybody has the same rights under the marriage act. Any man can marry any women homosexual, heterosexual or any other of the new gay lesbian, transsexual terms I'm not familiar with.

Person B wants to marry someone outside of the existing act and biology.

Gee....I dived straight into the biology books and funnily enough i didn't find anything about marriage in it. Go figure....