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Australia’s Labor Party will not vote as a bloc for gay marriage before 2019
Australia’s main Opposition party, the Australian Labor Party (ALP), will not vote as a bloc in support of same-sex couples being allowed to marry before the year 2019, the party’s national conference has decided.
The ALP’s left wing faction had hoped to secure a bloc vote in support of legislation allowing gay marriage in the next term of parliament.
However after hours of negotiations with the party’s right wing faction a compromise deal was made, pushing a bloc vote in favor of the reform almost into the next decade and most likely two elections away
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he would only consider allowing same-sex marriage to be legalized if it was done in a non-partisan way and some supporters of the reform held the view that a binding vote on the issue for Labor MPs would have made it harder for Abbott to allow his MPs a conscience vote on the issue.
‘Let us ask of Mr Abbott that he gives a free vote to all members of his party and of course if we ask for him to give a free vote, we must extend that ourselves,’ Labor Opposition leader Bill Shorten said at the start of today’s conference.
However others on the ALP left feel that the party should vote for the reform as a bloc as a matter of principle and say conscience votes should only be allowed for Labor MPs on life-or-death issues such as abortion or euthanasia.
This new motion means that conservative Labor MPs will most likely not have to vote against their consciences on same-sex marriage until well after it has already become legal as it seems inconceivable that the Australian Parliament will not allow the reform before 2019.
The post Australia’s Labor Party will not vote as a bloc for gay marriage before 2019 appeared first on Gay Star News.
Andrew Potts
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