Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten await same-sex marriage postal vote decision

WE’LL know at 2.15pm if the same-sex marriage postal survey will go ahead. The yes campaign have revealed their game plan for either eventuality.

Malcolm Turnbull could face a tough afternoon if the High Court decision goes against the government.

THE yes side in the same-sex marriage debate has opened up about their strategy after the High Court hands down its ruling on the postal survey’s validity on Thursday afternoon.

Taking to news.com.au, Equality Campaign head Tiernan Brady said their work would intensify whether the postal survey goes ahead or not. But he remained implacably opposed to Australians being asked to vote on whether same-sex unions should proceed.

“Australia’s parliament is where decisions about laws are taken and if we take one group of people and say your rights have to go through a tougher process before you get to Parliament that’s an unfair process. But it may be a process we face later today,” Mr Brady said on Thursday morning from Melbourne.

Whispers within the yes campaign have suggested there is a belief the Government will prevail and the postal survey will be allowed.

We’ll know if the postal survey is going ahead at 2.15pm AEST on Thursday afternoon. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten will be facing each other when the High Court answers the $122 million question on same-sex marriage.

The Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader are scheduled to be in Question Time (QT) in the House of Representatives — separated by only the width of the table — when the court releases its judgment on a SSM postal survey.

Officially the news will arrive at 2.15pm AEST, about the time the Labor Opposition is asking its third question of government ministers. The issue could then take over the remaining hour of QT.

Whatever the court decision, a significant number of Coalition MPs want the Parliament to vote on the Marriage Act before the end of the year.

If approved, the voluntary, non-binding and unpopular postal survey will proceed and a result counted by November 15. That could be followed by a vote on legislation.

If the survey is rejected, Mr Turnbull will be under pressure to allow a free vote on marriage, rather than make a third attempt to get Parliament to agree to a $160 million compulsory plebiscite on the matter.

The Equality Campaign’s Tiernan Brady says the yes side is ready for the postal vote going ahead or being struck down.

Rejection could reopen a bitter internal Government conflict over the issue.

Mr Brady said the Equality Campaign was ready whatever the decision might be.

“If the court case is successful then the campaign will return to parliament with one simple message — politicians need to do their job and get on with this in line with the wishes of the Australian people.

“If the survey goes ahead we’re in it to win it. We know that the Australian people are for [SSM] and we’ll do everything we can to ensure those values reflected in the result,” he said.

Translating the court’s statement will be the job of Attorney-General George Brandis sitting on the other side of Parliament House in the Senate, and shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.

Also waiting, but in a warehouse, will be 16 million ballot papers due to be mailed out next Tuesday should the High Court rule they have been legally funded.

The court appears to have recognised the tight timetable and to have produced its decision early enough to accommodate it. That does not mean it wants to support the survey but the relatively quick ruling after two days of hearings in Melbourne might give the Government hope.

Funding for the postal survey was challenged in the High Court because Parliament had declined to approve the spending.

The Government argued Finance Minister Mathias Cormann was entitled to make a special allocation of funds without Parliament’s agreement because the survey was urgent and unforeseen.

But as one lawyer told the court, urgency can be “a relative concept” and the Government had for months foreshadowed a ballot on SSM.