Turnbull safe from ‘rainbow rebels’ who threatened to cross floor over same-sex vote

Liberal MPs have moved to hose down speculation they will cross the floor to force a conscience vote on same sex marriage.

Tim Wilson, who formed part of the ‘rainbow rebels’ along with Trent Zimmerman, Trevor Evans, Dean Smith and Warren Entsch. Picture: Gary Ramage

Liberal MPs have moved to hose down speculation they will cross the floor to force a conscience vote on same sex marriage on the floor of federal parliament.

The “rainbow rebels” fuelled talk of the extraordinary move over the past week by refusing to rule out the option of crossing the floor, a move that would threaten the government’s management of the parliament.

The new signals mean Malcolm Turnbull is safe from the most drastic option in which rebels joined Labor, the Greens and four crossbenchers in the lower house to suspend standing orders and bring marriage equality to a vote.

The four Liberals in the lower house who led the charge on marriage reform are Warren Entsch, Trevor Evans, Tim Wilson and Trent Zimmerman, but the suspension motion would only succeed if all four of them crossed the floor.

“I’ve never said I would cross the floor and explicitly ruled out crossing the floor to support a Labor motion to suspend standing orders or a Labor bill,” Mr Wilson told The Australian on Tuesday morning.

LIVE: PoliticsNow has all the action from Parliament House in Canberra.

The call for a conscience vote was backed by two other MPs, John Alexander and Jason Wood, but Mr Wood said a postal vote was a good compromise and has made no threat to cross the floor.

The latest signals make it clear the government has the numbers to defeat a suspension motion, which can only succeed if marriage reform advocates secure 76 of the 150 votes in the lower house.

While Bill Shorten has told all 69 Labor MPs they would be bound to support the motion, at least one MP is absent (Kate Ellis is on maternity leave) and only four of the five crossbenchers back the move. They are Andrew Wilkie, Cathy McGowan, Adam Bandt and Rebekha Sharkie.

This means at least four Liberals need to cross the floor on the suspension motion for it to succeed.

Mr Entsch told ABC TV on Monday night that he reserved his right in terms of how he would vote.

None of the Liberals threatened to cross the floor on a suspension motion but the fact they did not rule it out led their colleagues to consider it a serious option.

The Liberal Party’s lead advocate for a private member’s bill to legislate same sex marriage, Western Australian Senator Dean Smith, has vowed to abstain on the next text on the issue, a vote on a compulsory plebiscite in the upper house this week, but he has no bearing on the calculations in the lower house.

Nick Xenophon Team MP Rebekha Sharkie said the Liberals should keep up the pressure for a vote in parliament.

“I’d like to think they have the courage to go ahead with their private members’ bill,” she told Sky News.

The Turnbull government has found a way to dodge one of the biggest legal threats against its postal vote on same sex marriage, asking the Australian Bureau of Statistics to conduct the survey rather than relying on electoral law.

Coalition MPs were told on Tuesday morning that the government will commission the ABS to run the postal vote to ensure Australians have their say on the issue amid legal threats from marriage equality advocates who oppose the public vote.