Watch out PM — John Howard can sniff trouble a’coming

Two weeks ago, John Howard pinpointed the philosophical and legal loophole of religious freedoms in the Yes campaign for same-sex marriage, which Malcolm Turnbull had to concede.

Now the most successful Liberal leader in modern times has belled the practical political cat and foresees a parliamentary battle over the same-sex marriage legislation.

Again, Howard has challenged the Coalition and Prime Minister to reveal protections for freedom of speech, conscience and religion before the same-sex marriage postal survey finishes in November.

While the Newspoll survey this week showed a narrowing of the Yes campaign lead and gave heart to those on the No campaign, there were two other survey results that convinced Howard to redouble his efforts against same-sex marriage.

The first was overwhelming across-the-board support through all age and political groups for protection of religious freedoms in any same-sex marriage legislation and the second was that only 15 per cent of people had voted.

Howard immediately recognised the parliamentary challenge for Turnbull.

Yesterday, Turnbull was still talking about legislation for same-sex marriage passing parliament “very fast” and being sent off to the Governor-General for a signature should the Yes vote succeed.

Howard’s superior experience and sense of the Australian mainstream suggests there could be a closer result than expected and with it a strong expectation that parliament will have to embrace robust freedom protections.

Howard, like Tony Abbott, and unlike Turnbull, believes the onus is on the Yes side to produce protections and that existing anti-discrimination laws will be used even more aggressively to silence debate and harass individuals.

The man who was instrumental in Turnbull remaining in parliament also takes sharp aim at the current PM’s claim to care for freedom of speech more than same-sex marriage by saying not presenting the protections before the vote is akin to not caring about them.

Howard cites the less than generous assumptions of the Yes campaigners that the No vote has to accept the will of the people but Bill Shorten, Labor and the Greens don’t.

A closer than expected result, traditional marriage supporters — especially Coalition voters — feeling left out and two-thirds support for religious protections spell trouble for Turnbull in “moving on” from same-sex marriage before Christmas.

Howard can smell trouble and is warning the Coalition over an issue in which he deeply believes.