One day last week, I had one of the most touching, most humbling, moments of my (long) life. A man sought me out when I was standing outside St. Paul’s Cathedral after Sir Ninian Stephen’s funeral.

He shook my hand and thanked me for my crucial vote which helped scuttle the government’s same-sex marriage plebiscite in the Senate. That man was former High Court judge and marriage equality proponent, Michael Kirby. I was genuinely chuffed. There had been a lot of ignorant flak when we “robbed the people of the right to be heard”.

Of course, the plebiscite didn’t go ahead but a postal ballot did, so flash forward to yesterday when the Yes vote was announced as 61.6%. In the office sweep I predicted 56% to 44%. I thought the unscrupulous No campaign had gained ground in the final weeks.

Senators and staff gathered in a conference room to hear the AEC spokesman “do a Rob Oakeshott” and drag out the result for what seemed like an eternity.

In the minutes before, I was standing with Senator Penny Wong and her personal tension was almost palpable. I told her it was a disgrace that we were even there – waiting to see what total strangers had decreed as to how gay people would be allowed to live their lives.

Her tears of relief weren’t the only ones. (See pic.)

 

So now it is back to us, the politicians, to formalise and vote on legislation to bring us into line with so many other countries – as we should have done last year. Or even earlier. And we could have saved more than $120 million.

As I have written here before, and argued in the Senate, John Howard was specific about who should, and who could, tamper with the Marriage Act when he changed it in 2004 and when Labor went along with it. That was the amendment that defined marriage as “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others”.

Prime Minister Howard said he wanted to make that definition “very plain” and also make it very plain that the definition of marriage, “is something that should rest in the hands ultimately of the parliament of the nation. [It should] not over time be subject to redefinition or change by courts, it is something that ought to be expressed through the elected representatives of the country.”

During this year’s marriage equality debate, Howard said, “What we didn’t want to happen in 2004 was for the courts to start adjudicating on the definition of marriage because that was a real threat in 2004 because some people who had contracted same sex marriages in another country had the capacity to bring their issues before courts in Australia.”

So now, with Senate the only chamber in session this week, Dean Smith, yesterday, introduced his private member’s bill proudly co-sponsored by eight other senators (me included) from Labor, Greens, Libs and NXT.

The only impediment, and it is a big one, is the rival spoiler of a bill – with a plethora of amendments — put up by NO campaigners (the Abetz brigade) using new Senator James Paterson as a naïve stalking horse with the bill a cynical Trojan horse.

I’ll admit I did say in the Senate that Senator Paterson’s Bill would “take us back to the dark ages by legalising homophobic discrimination”.

As I said to Attorney-General George Brandis in Question Time: “What does it say about your Government, that in 2017 your party room would even debate legislation that discriminates against gay people and could even open the door to discrimination against black people or Jews or some other people on religious grounds?”

When it does get to a conscience vote (and it will be before Xmas) remember that then prime minister Robert Menzies allowed a conscience vote in Parliament in 1958 when he introduced “no fault” divorce — which surely was a bigger threat to traditional marriage than letting some gay people in love make that commitment official. 

***

With no offence intended to the gay community, my office decided to run a sweep on the postal vote outcome with the $5 entry fee being donated by the winner to the Wintringham homeless project.

As I said my guess was a pessimistic 56-44. The most optimistic was Labor senator Katy Gallagher with 68-32.

The closest was the Xenophon team’s Stirling Griff with 62-38.

The prime minister’s office was very diplomatic. They gave us $50 for the charity with the notation
“Donation only. Awaiting the people’s verdict”.

***

At the first party whips meeting for this session of the Senate last Monday, the government whip, Senator David Bushby, filled us in on how, later in the morning, the Governor-General would swear in three new senators replacing three dual-citz casualties.

Then he made a, to me, strange suggestion that to save time we just applaud new senators Bartlett, Anning and Steele-John and not go on to the floor to congratulate them.

Asked why, Senator Bushby, said the GG had somewhere else to go.

I asked: “What’s more important than doing official business in the Senate?” After all, that’s a fairly major part of his job.

Somebody whispered that he “has a plane to catch”.