Shorten’s gay marriage conundrum: to fight process or join Yes campaign

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten faces a tough choice. Picture: AAP

Bill Shorten is faced with an intolerable choice.

He can continue his campaign against the legal validity of a postal plebiscite on gay marriage or he can join the crusade for a “yes” vote.

A more impossible question awaits the Opposition Leader should Australians return a “no” vote, which is entirely possible considering the nature of a plebiscite requires those advocating for change to make the case to the people for why that change is necessary.

The use of a postal plebiscite has ensured that the entire debate about gay marriage now hinges on an argument about legitimacy — that of the procedural mechanism of a plebiscite itself and that of the result should it even get that far.

The Labor leader realises he has more to lose than the Prime Minister from the outcome.

In accepting a people’s vote which supports the status quo, Shorten exposes his leadership to grave risk. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which the left of the Labor Party, the unions and the gay marriage lobby would tolerate such an outcome.

The alternative for Shorten could be electoral poison. Continuing the movement for a vote in parliament, which under Labor’s rules would bind all MPs to a “yes” vote after the next election, would be a defiant snub to the “people”.

This is unlikely to sit well with the blue-collar voters he is hunting in the outer-metropolitan electorates.

The result itself could become even more bitterly contested depending on the voter turnout. Even though conservative MPs, including Tony Abbott, have said they would respect the will of the people, a low voter turnout (postal returns) with a majority “yes” verdict will most certainly be challenged on the grounds of legitimacy by conservative constituencies.

Equally, a low voter turnout with a “no” majority will not be accepted by the pro-marriage equality lobby — or by more than half the Labor caucus.

Malcolm Turnbull is offered some sort of political protection by going down this road. There is nothing stopping the rebel Liberal MPs rejecting a “no” vote. And Turnbull could find himself back to where he started this week with the task of trying to head off rebel MPs again threatening to do what they have been threatening for the past month.

There is also the issue of religious protections in a gay marriage bill. Shorten has given no guarantee on this. Turnbull says “no dice” without those protections. There is still no certainty that both sides of politics can agree on the nature of the bill itself.

Both leaders claim that Australians are mature enough to have a civil debate about it. This is clearly optimistic.

It is certainly an unrealistic expectation to have of parliamentarians, many of whom are notoriously ambiguous when it comes to preaching on issues of morality.