Deputy Nationals leader says Asian countries may judge Australia and likens any changes to Marriage Act to ‘making a definition into something that it’s not’

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Some parts of south-east Asia could view Australia embracing same-sex marriage as “decadence”, the deputy Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, has said.



Joyce also likened potential changes to the Marriage Act to “making a definition into something that it’s not” and said parliament could not “pass a piece of legislation that said that a diamond is a square”.



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The Coalition government is wrestling with how to handle same-sex marriage after several Liberal backbenchers said they would push ahead with a cross-party bill after the resumption of parliament in August.

The prime minister, Tony Abbott, opposes same-sex marriage and has played down the prospect of the Coalition joint party room debating the private member’s bill, despite a push by Liberal moderates for MPs to be granted a free vote so that ministers could support change.



The Coalition’s Senate leader, Eric Abetz, said last week that frontbenchers who could not support Liberal party policy should quit their positions – and argued Asian countries had not joined the global march towards same-sex marriage.



In an interview on Sunday, Joyce said Abetz was right to say Australia lived economically in south-east Asia.



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Joyce told the ABC’s Insiders program: “I think that what we have to understand is that when we go there, there are judgments, whether you like it or not, that are made about us and there they see in how we negotiate with them, whether they see us as – whether they see us as decadent. Now, people say well, that’s outrageous … ”

Asked whether they would see Australia embracing gay marriage as decadence, Joyce said: “I think that in some instances they would, yeah.”

“Decadence” is sometimes used to refer to moral degeneration or decay.



Joyce, who is the agriculture minister and a senior member of the Nationals, said MPs should not redefine marriage. “I see marriage as a reflection of what I have, what my parents had, what my grandparents had. It’s not about equality,” he said.



“I want to stand with the current definition of marriage. I think it has been trialled by time, by thousands of years across multiple cultures, across multiple faiths and I just don’t think that us going into the parliament, making a definition into something that it’s not, solves any problems. I think it could actually create problems.



“I don’t think if you go and pass a piece of legislation that said that a diamond is a square makes diamonds squares, they’re two different things. It’s not making a value judgment about either, they’re just two different things.”

Rodney Croome, the national director of the Australian Marriage Equality lobby group, said Joyce’s claim was irrelevant.

Croome said the relevant international benchmark was the countries that were closest to Australia in law, history, culture and language, citing “New Zealand, Canada, the UK, the US and Ireland – all of which have marriage equality”.

“Australians will not be guided by what some Chinese or Burmese official thinks is decadent,” he said.

Liberal backbenchers Warren Entsch and Teresa Gambaro have been involved in drafting the marriage equality legislation, to be jointly backed by Labor backbenchers and Greens and independent MPs.

The social services minister, Scott Morrison, said on Sunday he would not “flip flop” on his support for the Liberal party’s policy that marriage was between a man and a woman.

Morrison said the proposed “substantial change” was “not something that should be rammed through the parliament just because someone says it should”.

“I think those who are proposing the change underestimate the sort of change that this entails and if you talk to the many ethnic communities across Australia, the linkage between their strong beliefs – and it doesn’t matter whether they’re Christian beliefs or Hindu beliefs or Muslim beliefs – and the connection between that and their culture is very deeply felt,” he told Ten’s Bolt Report.

“They’re a voice that I don’t think we’ve heard a lot on in this debate and what the change means for them. We are a multicultural country and that means respecting culture in this question as much as in any other.”



Morrison leant support to calls in some quarters for the proposal to be put to the public for a plebiscite. “I’m very open to these issues to be further explored by the community, not by warring politicians on this, or warring clerics,” he said.

Several ministers, assistant ministers and parliamentary secretaries – including Malcolm Turnbull, Simon Birmingham, Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O’Dwyer – have previously publicly expressed support for same-sex marriage.



Abetz last week suggested that frontbench colleagues should take “the honourable course of action” and quit their leadership positions if they were unable to support the Liberal party’s “long-established policy” of upholding marriage between a man and a woman.



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Those comments were part of a pushback by conservatives against what appeared to be growing momentum for change – fuelled by the referendum result in Ireland and the US supreme court decision.

Abetz’s remarks drew a rebuke from the education minister, Christopher Pyne, who said resignation calls were “not helpful”. Pyne pointedly reminded his colleagues that the prime minister had indicated everyone’s views on the topic should be respected.

Entsch told Fairfax Media on Sunday he would “let these others have their day in the sun”. He indicated he would push ahead with the marriage equality legislation, as planned, and would discuss the contents of the bill when it was presented to parliament.