Daniel Andrews pleads with PM: ‘This plebiscite will hurt people’

VICTORIAN Premier Daniel Andrews has written a strongly worded letter to the PM, pleading with him not to impose “one final insult” on gay people.

Daniel Andrews did not hold back in his strongly worded letter to the Prime Minister.

VICTORIAN Premier Daniel Andrews has made an impassioned plea to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ditch his plan to hold a nation plebiscite on marriage equality, because he believes the vote “will hurt people”.

The Labor leader shared a letter addressed to Mr Turnbull expressing how he feels about the plebiscite the Prime Minister campaigned on during his successful election campaign.

In the letter, he described the pitch as “a harmful public vote on whether or not a group of Australians should be considered equal under the law”.

“Despite members of your government publicly stating that, regardless of the plebiscite result, they will vote against marriage equality in the Parliament, you are proposing to spend $160 million of taxpayers’ money on what amounts to the nation’s most expensive opinion poll,” he wrote.

“The plebiscite will hurt people. It will legitimise a hateful debate which will subject LGBTI Australians to publicly funded slurs and denigration, further alienating a proud community who have fought so hard against prejudice for so long.”

I wrote a letter to the PM, because his plebiscite on marriage equality will hurt people. pic.twitter.com/yQp5XTdVxE

— Daniel Andrews (@DanielAndrewsMP) July 24, 2016

Mr Andrews reflected on his own marriage to wife Catherine, saying he has since realised how “precious” the couple’s right to marriage was because he now sees people “forced to fight” to be able to marry the person they love.

Mr Andrews requested, on behalf of Victoria, to accept there was no need for a “costly and divisive” plebiscite, and called instead for a free vote for government members.

“Marriage equality means so much to so many people. On the cusp of its realisation, it is wrong for you to impose one last hurdle — one final insult,” he wrote.

Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews is against the plebiscite proposal. Picture: Andy Rogers

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is determined to hold a plebiscite as soon as possible. Picture: Paul Miller/AAP

Mr Turnbull has proposed holding a plebiscite to legalise gay marriage by the end of the year and if that is not possible early 2017.

Though the government has faced opposition over the proposed plebiscite, Attorney-General George Brandis said on Sunday the national vote was the only way forward.

“There is going to be a plebiscite and the only way that in this parliament this issue can be progressed is through a plebiscite,” he said on ABC TV.

The government is in talks with the electoral commissioner about how soon is practical for a plebiscite to be held.

Originally published as Daniel Andrews pleads with PM: ‘This plebiscite will hurt people’