Malcolm Turnbull has said the cross-party marriage equality bill produced by Dean Smith is a good starting point for parliament, as lawyers and Liberal MP Warren Entsch blasted a rival conservative bill that allows wide-ranging discrimination against same-sex weddings.

Entsch told Guardian Australia he was “surprised and disappointed” that the Liberal senator James Paterson had put his name to the bill, released on Monday, which accedes to conservative demands to allow private service providers to reject same-sex weddings.

The Law Council of Australia president, Fiona McLeod, said the Paterson bill encroached on anti-discrimination laws amended in 2013 to protect LGBTI people “in an extraordinary and perilous way”.

Paterson has conceded the bill allows differential treatment of same-sex couples, but said it did not give “carte blanche” for discrimination because only wedding-related services could be refused.

At a media conference in Manila, where he is attending the East Asia summit, Turnbull said in the event of a yes vote in the same-sex marriage survey, Coalition members would have a free vote, and senators would determine which bill to deal with first.

Asked about Smith’s bill, Turnbull said it had “been around for some months and is clearly a good bill to start with”.

“In a situation like this when a bill is presented, it’s like the first draft, so that gets put up, and there’ll no doubt be plenty of amendments ... debated, no doubt, for hours on end and at the end of it they’ll come to a conclusion on an amended bill.”

The Paterson bill would override state and territory anti-discrimination laws to allow the refusal of services to same-sex weddings by anyone who held a religious or “conscientious belief”.

McLeod warned the bill could “potentially see a situation where a hire car company could leave their customers stranded on the way to a marriage ceremony simply because the driver held a thought or belief against it”.

Entsch said Paterson – who supports same-sex marriage – “seems to be having two bob each way”.

“I question his commitment here, that he is seen to be doing the bidding of those opposed to same-sex marriage,” he said.



Entsch is one of five Liberal supporters of the cross-party marriage bill produced by Smith out of the recommendations of a Senate committee inquiry. The bill enjoys support from Labor and qualified support from the Greens, who intend to seek amendments.

Paterson said he would seek a meeting with Smith to ask for a “shared path forward” and did not believe “any material steps” should be taken until a discussion in the Coalition party room, which next meets in two weeks.

Smith has said he will introduce his bill on Thursday, and a spokesman confirmed it was still his intention to introduce it “as soon as practically possible” after the announcement of the postal survey result was announced on Wednesday.

Entsch suggested the public were right to be cynical that conservative opponents were now showing a “sudden interest” in marriage equality and proposed a bill winding back anti-discrimination law “at a federal state and territory level for a particular cohort”.

“I’m not sure how comfortable the Australian public will be with this ... They won’t sit back while we have a debate for three years about what class of citizen we should make the gay community. It won’t stack up.”

On Sky News Paterson accepted that the bill would treat same-sex couples differently, but said religious views did not trump freedom from discrimination in all circumstances, only in the field of weddings.

Asked why religious freedom did not also imply a right to reject interfaith or interracial marriages, Paterson replied that “no one is asking” for those rights.

Asked why religious freedom meant parents could withdraw their children from classes they felt breached their view of traditional marriage, but parents who disagreed with evolution could not do so, Paterson said religious parents were not asking to pull children out of science classes.

The Paterson bill would introduce “anti-detriment” provisions to prevent government authorities taking adverse action on the basis a person holding a relevant marriage belief, including in employment and licensing professionals such as doctors.

The director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre and co-chair of the Equality Campaign, Anna Brown, said: “You only have to look at the range of scenarios to see that what this bill proposes is truly bizarre and out of step with contemporary Australian values.

“Under the allocation of funding clause, a homelessness charity would be assured of continued government funding even if they refuse take in a trans youngster kicked out of home or a single mother with a child born out of wedlock,” she said.

Brown also pointed to the provision to allow celebrants to refuse to marry couples if they did not accept their gender identity, which she said was “carte blanche to deny the existence of trans and intersex people”.

“The idea that one person has the right to decide what sex or gender someone else is goes against the right to self-determination and fails to protect these vulnerable groups from mistreatment and discrimination.”