Coalition warns Labor ‘will restrict freedoms’

Coalition MPs are threatening to turn religious freedoms into an election issue.

West Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie said: “if you support traditional marriage, a vote for Labor in 2019 will be a vote to restrict your own freedoms.” Picture: Fabrizio Lipari

Coalition MPs are threatening to turn religious freedoms into an election issue by warning Australians that a vote for Bill Shorten would see more people trapped in an “intellectual and moral straitjacket” if same-sex marriage is legalised.

Seizing on claims by Tasman­ian Labor senator Helen Polley that she had been urged by senior ALP figures to pretend to support same-sex marriage against her conscience, Coalition MPs yesterday said a vote for Labor at the next election was a “vote to ­restrict your own freedoms”.

Internal tracking polls from the No campaign indicate more than one in four Labor voters would vote No, compared with 52 per cent of Liberal Party voters.

The 2015 ALP platform scrapped a conscience vote for Labor MPs on same-sex marriage as of the next election, with several government MPs arguing the treatment of Senator Polley showed Labor did not consider support for traditional marriage to be a valid position.

West Australian Liberal MP Andrew Hastie said: “My message is this: if you support traditional marriage, a vote for Labor in 2019 will be a vote to restrict your own freedoms.

“Labor will dress the Australian people in an intellectual and moral straitjacket.

“If this is how they treat Labor family, how will they treat those who oppose them?”

With the Australian Bureau of Statistics today releasing its first estimate of the number of ­returned postal ballots, ACT ­Liberal senator Zed Seselja said the treatment of Senator Polley was “another example of bullying of those opposed to gay marriage, this time in the ALP”.

“It shows the claims that a conscience vote exists within Labor is a joke,” he said.

“I’m sure Senator Polley speaks for many in the ALP but too many others don’t have the guts to speak up.”

Internal polling from the No campaign suggests targeting Labor supporters who ­oppose same-sex marriage could provide a much-needed boost to Malcolm Turnbull’s political fortunes.

Tony Abbott advised those ­opposed to changing the Marriage Act not to trust Labor’s commitment to upholding their free­dom of speech or religion.

“Labor says it supports freedom of speech but it won’t give its own MPs freedom on same-sex marriage,” he said.

“It says it ­believes in democracy but won’t respect a plebiscite vote it doesn’t like.”

The Yes campaign also released polling yesterday, conducted by Newgate Research, suggesting 69 per cent of Australians aged from 18 to 24 had returned their postal votes, with another 17 per cent saying they had filled out the forms with the intention to post them.

The survey of 100 people between last Monday and Thursday suggested 77 per cent of all eligible voters already had posted their ballots.

Opposition Senate Leader Penny Wong said Senator Polley was entitled to oppose same-sex marriage, but stressed the “overwhelming majority of Labor MPs” would be voting Yes.