Reports that moderate Liberal MPs will push for the government to abandon its proposed marriage equality plebiscite in favour of a free vote are “fake news”, treasurer Scott Morrison has said.

On Saturday Fairfax Media reported a group of moderate MPs will call for reconsideration of a free vote on marriage equality in the next two weeks.

Liberal moderate MPs are still working towards a bill on same-sex marriage to emerge from the Senate inquiry on the government’s exposure draft, which will report on 13 February.

Liberal senator Dean Smith, who has described the plebiscite policy as “dead”, and a group of moderates including Tim Wilson and Trent Zimmerman believe the government position must default to a free vote, as Tony Abbott said the 44th parliament would be the last to be bound on same-sex marriage.

The call has drawn criticism from conservative figures Tony Abbott, George Christensen and Josh Frydenberg who have moved to shut it down, while others including the leader of the House, Christopher Pyne, seem open to it if and when a bill is produced.

On Monday Morrison told a press conference in Canberra the issue was not a focus of the government and its policy remains a plebiscite.

Asked about the moderates’ push, Morrison replied: “I will leave the fake news to others.”

On Monday Pyne told ABC’s AM that Labor defeated the plebiscite bill “in a very cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face move”.



“We could’ve had marriage equality after this Saturday, probably within a matter of weeks, if Labor hadn’t been so bloody-minded.”

Pyne said there was “no Coalition bill before the House at the moment to deal with marriage equality and until and if there is, it’s a moot point”.

On Monday special minister of state, Scott Ryan told Radio National the government would not be distracted by gay marriage, adding that he “spent a lot of time last year working on a comprehensive plebiscite proposal”.

“I’m not going to let [Labor and the Greens’s] opportunism define Coalition policy,” he said, citing Bill Shorten earlier saying he was “comfortable” with the prospect of a plebiscite.

“We’re committed to the plebiscite, I’m committed to the plebiscite.”

Ryan said arguments against the plebiscite were “absolutely reprehensible” because they amounted to saying the Australian people couldn’t be trusted to conduct the debate responsibly.

At a doorstop in Canberra addressing the possible break-away of Cory Bernardi to form a conservative party, Christensen said discussion of same-sex marriage was “not helpful” and the government already had a policy.

“If this government goes down the road of breaking its agreement with the people that we made that we were going to do to a plebiscite, then, you know, the show’s over,” he said.

Asked to clarify, Christensen said issues like same-sex marriage made the government seem out of touch and it had to reconnect with its core constituency.

Abbott has warned that abandoning the plebiscite in favour of a free vote would be breaking a promise. The energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, has also backed the plebiscite, suggesting that Labor will “inevitably blink” and pass the bill.

On Sunday Malcolm Turnbull said his party’s policy was for a plebiscite, but did not detail how he would respond to the push by Liberal backbenchers for reconsideration of marriage equality in the party room.

“I took to the last election the policy of my party and my government which was to have a plebiscite,” he told Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.

“We are calling on Bill Shorten to rethink his position and if he supports the plebiscite, then it’ll pass through the Senate, then it will be held and every Australian will have a say.”

A ReachTel poll commissioned by the Australians for Equality campaign, released on Monday, found that 62% of voters want their federal member to “be allowed to vote for same-sex marriage when the issues comes to parliament”.

That compared with 25% who opposed a free vote and 13% who were undecided.

The poll of 4,742 residents in the Coalition-held electorates of Chisholm, Corangamite, Durak, Gilmore, LaTrobe, Murray and Page found that majorities in all seven seats wanted their MPs to have a free vote.

Asked how it would affect their vote if the Coalition blocked a free vote, 18% said it made them more likely to vote for the Coalition, 41% said it made them less likely to and 41% said it wouldn’t affect their vote.

Asked how important it was to resolve same-sex marriage this year, 41% said it was “very important”, 41% said it was “not important at all” and 19% said it was “somewhat important”.

The Australian Marriage Equality co-chairman, Alex Greenwich, told Radio National on Monday the “political reality is that [the plebiscite] is dead”.

“This was a policy that I don’t think anyone is missing – it was not a popular policy.”

Greenwich said a new ad blitz by the marriage equality campaign would remind politicians that marriage equality is “about real people who aspire to marry the people they love in the country they love”.