Turnbull to back push for same-sex marriage bill amendments

Malcolm Turnbull will fall in behind his partyroom and back religious-­protection amendments.

Same-sex marriage supporters celebrate after the bill passed the Senate yesterday. Picture: AAP

Malcolm Turnbull will fall in behind a majority of his partyroom and back a range of religious-­protection amendments to the same-sex-marriage bill when parliament returns next week for a final vote in the House of Representatives.

The Prime Minister yesterday confirmed to The Australian he would vote in favour of several proposed amendments to the Dean Smith bill that yesterday passed the Senate unamended, following the failure of Coalition senators to secure any of the greater protections demanded by conservatives.

It is understood Mr Turnbull will vote for limited amendments drafted by the Attorney-General George Brandis, also rejected in the Senate, which would safeguard charities and protect civil celebrants from being forced to marry same-sex couples.

But the Prime Minister is unlikely to vote for the broader amendments for parental rights and anti-detriment provisions, drafted by Liberal senators David Fawcett and James Paterson, which failed in the Senate after six Coalition senators broke with a majority of colleagues and voted with Labor and the Greens to defeat them.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said Mr Turnbull would likely vote in favour of the Brandis amendments despite the likelihood they would also fail in the House of Representatives, as at least four of Mr Turnbull’s moderate Liberal colleagues were threatening to join Labor and the crossbench to vote against them.

“The Prime Minister supports protections for religious freedom, including safeguards for the legal status of charities, as well as provisions that would ensure that marriage celebrants are able to decline to solemnise marriages which they do not wish to solemnise,” a spokesman for the Prime Minister said.

“Depending on the form in which amendment proposals are presented to the house, it is likely that the Prime Minister will support measures that seek to provide greater protections in the legislation, where the legalisation of same-sex marriage necessitates immediate action on those protections. The reason amendments were unsuccessful in the Senate is because Labor refused to allow its senators a free vote on those amendments.”

Nationals MPs Andrew Broad and George Christensen yesterday accused Mr Turnbull of lacking leadership over his handling of religious protections on the Smith bill. Mr Broad said the Prime Minister had walked away from enshrining religious protections in a “sneaky” way. “In my view, there’s been a complete lack of leadership,” he told the ABC.

“All the assurances both by the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader were that religious protections would be protected, they believed in those.”

Mr Christensen tweeted: “I concur with my Nationals colleague Andrew Broad. A true ­leader would have sought to ­capture the will of the people and protect freedoms, not this hands-off approach.”

Mr Turnbull rejected tensions were at boiling point in the ­Coalition partyroom but he urged backbenchers to stop speaking badly of the government in public.

There were jubilant scenes in the Senate yesterday when the Smith bill passed unamended. The Senate voted 43-12 in favour of the bill after a day of emotional speeches.

Senator Smith said his bill achieved the correct balance with limited religious protections. “The lack of substantive amendments indicates we got the balance correct,” he said. “The bill expresses a faith in the current architecture of Australia’s religious protections. The architecture is precise.”

It is expected that a group of conservative MPs will next week seek to move the same amendments proposed by senators Fawcett and Paterson but rejected by the Senate when the lower house returns for the last sitting week of the year. Labor has issued a directive to lower house MPs that while there would be a conscience vote on the Smith bill to enable same-sex marriage, there will be no conscience vote on the amendments.

At least four moderate MPs instrumental in the Yes campaign to back the Smith bill signalled yesterday that they would cross the floor and vote with Labor and the crossbench to defeat any amendments, ensuring the Smith bill passed both house of parliament unchanged.

North Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch said he would oppose the amendments and argued they should be considered as part of the inquiry into religious freedoms being led by former Liberal MP Philip Ruddock. “I’ll be supporting what comes out of the Senate,” he said. “I don’t think there’s much appetite at this part of the debate for people to start playing silly games.”

North Sydney MP Trent Zimmerman said the Smith bill, to which he was a co-signatory, struck the “right approach to delivering the equality Australians voted for”.

Queensland MP Trevor Evans said there was “some posturing occurring out there on both sides” but his signature had been on the Smith bill since it was sent to MPs for consideration in August. He said he was “actively considering” some of the amendments but had some concerns. “I’m not inclined to support the creation of new forms of discrimination,” he said.

Victorian MP Tim Wilson said he would consider every amendment based on whether it was “consistent with a liberal democracy where everything is legal unless specifically made illegal”.

As the Smith bill was put through its third and final reading in the Senate yesterday, Labor’s leader in the upper house, Penny Wong, said: “This day has been a long time coming.”

Attorney-General and Senate leader George Brandis labelled the passing of the Smith bill as historic.

“It is well known that some years ago, some time ago, I was not a supporter of the plebiscite, but I am so glad it happened this way,” Senator Brandis said.

“I am so glad that we involved every man and woman in Australia in this historic decision.

“I am so proud of Australian democracy today, more proud than I have ever been. Nobody owns this result but the Australian people themselves.”

Nationals senator and Resources Minister Matt Canavan, who voted against the bill, said he could not support it because it didn’t have enough religious protections.

“I do not think we have made these changes in a way which advances rights fully through this process; in particular I think the failure to fully protect celebrants who have or may have a conscientious or non-religious objection to solemnising a same-sex marriage is a missed opportunity for our parliament to unify here,” Senator Canavan said.

Additional reporting: Anastasia Kalloniati, Greg Brown