Eddie Blewett was referenced in Question Time during a fiery debate on same-sex mariage. Credit:Andrew Meares That was until this year, when Eddie started high school and the bullying began. "People were saying stuff about my family - that it's not normal, it's not right," Eddie says. As well as the new school, Neroli Dickson thinks the national debate about a plebiscite on same-sex marriage played a part in the bullying. "It has given people permission to say things in the playground - to pass on what they've heard at the dinner table," she says.

Eddie Blewett with his mums Neroli Dickson and Claire Blewett. Credit:Andrew Meares Things got so bad for Eddie that Claire and Neroli pulled him out of the school and enrolled him at a new one. The name-calling has now stopped. But they are worried a plebiscite campaign would force other kids to go through what Eddie did. Eddie's letter to Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:Andrew Meares So they decided to travel to Canberra on Tuesday with Rainbow Families, a support group for LGBTQI families.

Among the politicians they met was deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek, who took up Eddie's cause with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Question Time. That really upset me "He said to me and I quote, 'Why should people who barely know us make an assumption on our families and vote on how we can live?'" Plibersek asked as Eddie and his mums watched in the public gallery above. "Can the Prime Minister explain why Eddie should have to put up with a $7.5 million campaign by people who have never met him, telling him that there is something wrong with his family?" Turnbull said he welcomed Eddie's presence in the House of Representatives before accusing Plibersek of using him to make a political point.

"Eddie will understand that everything we do here in this Parliament is designed to ensure that Australia becomes an even better place for him to grow up in and realise his dreams," Turnbull said. "What [Plibersek] has said is that people who do not know Eddie are not entitled to express a view on the Marriage Act. That's what she is saying." Australia has nothing to fear from the plebiscite, he said, because the debate will be "respectful" and "civil". Neroli Dickson says the Prime Minister's argument is bunkum. "He has no idea how uncivil a playground can be.

"I'm not sure if he has a short memory or he went to an exceptional school but children aren't civil." Eddie says: "I thought he didn't answer us at all. He didn't say no or yes in a straight way." He was so unhappy with Turnbull's answer that he wrote him a letter after Question Time. "That really upset me," he wrote. "Please do your job.

"We want same-sex marriage without hearing in the playground that I am not normal."