Here’s Malcolm Turnbull: “Three years ago Bill Shorten said publicly that he supported a plebiscite as a means of resolving the question about whether the law should be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry; clearly he doesn’t have an objection in principle to a plebiscite.”

Here’s Bill Shorten: “[Turnbull] himself said before being leader of the Liberal Party that a free vote in parliament was the best way to go. How did we end up with such a weak prime minister that when he knows what the right thing is to do, he persists in sending $200 million on a second-best option?”

Turnbull, on negotiations to deliver a plebiscite: “It’s really up to the Labor Party to tell us what they propose.”

Labor’s Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, before those negotiations: “If Senator Brandis asks me to come to a meeting, of course I’ll go, I’ll be listening, and we’ll wait to see what he comes up with.”

Attorney-General George Brandis, after negotiations: “I looked Mr Dreyfus in the eye and said ‘What is your position? What will it take to get Labor to agree to this plebiscite bill?’ I’m disappointed that on every occasion ... they refused to do so.”

Dreyfus, after negotiations: “The Attorney-General did not suggest anything that the Government is prepared to change.”

To summarise: Both leaders are seeking to make political hay out of the fact their opposite number once believed what they themselves have only recently come to believe. Both of our major political parties expected the other party to arrive at negotiations with a list of changes they might be willing to contemplate. Both parties left negotiations attacking the other party for failing to propose any changes they might be willing to contemplate.

This is obviously farcical, but it’s important to understand why that’s the case. There is some method in this insanity.

The first thing to understand is that both sides would be fairly content were things to end here. Labor believes a plebiscite is a terrible idea. Arguably there is political advantage, too, for Labor in being able to present itself as the party supporting marriage equality at the next election. Labor’s main arguments against the plebiscite involve the potential damage done by a debate in which LGBTI people are attacked for their sexuality, and it is hard to see what concessions could be made to get around this issue. That was always going to make it difficult for Labor to put changes on the table – though it has made clear it wants the public funding for both sides scrapped.

The Coalition, as we know, is split on whether a plebiscite is actually the best idea, but Turnbull got stuck with it by the conservatives when he took power, and he can’t back away now. If Turnbull and Brandis act first, and offer concessions to Labor, they risk serious attack from the George Christensens of the world, which is precisely the mess Turnbull sought to avoid by agreeing to the plebiscite in the first place. If the plebiscite fails to go ahead, then Turnbull is afforded clear air to rebuild his government’s fortunes, rather than a controversial, agenda-dominating, nationwide vote.

At the same time, both sides know they need to appear as though they are sincere in their willingness to negotiate. When talks break down altogether, as seems inevitable, each needs to point to the other and blame them both for being intransigent and for having delayed marriage equality. That’s why both sides will keep saying they’re happy to “listen”, without necessarily being willing to say anything. This is also a large part of the reason Shorten has not made a final recommendation to his party yet on whether it should oppose the plebiscite legislation (though he has argued against it publicly).

At the level of political theatre, both sides look equally stupid. Not on the substance of the matter, though. While both sides are motivated by politics, and both leaders have flipped their personal positions on the plebiscite, Shorten has at least landed in the correct spot.

There is an important principle that should always be kept in mind during debates on the rights of minorities, and that is: pay attention to what the members of the minority actually want. It’s not the only consideration, given governments are there to balance the rights of all citizens, but it’s central, and should be given the highest priority in the absence of strong arguments to the contrary.

There are some arguments to the contrary in this case, but none of them particularly strong, given our parliament’s willingness to decide other thorny issues like euthanasia. And while there is of course no monolithic LGBTI view, it does seem that the majority view is against the plebiscite. Dreyfus today said he had heard a number of “impassioned personal pleas ... from people in the LGBTI community saying they would rather wait a little bit longer for marriage equality than have this expensive, divisive plebiscite”. If the view of the only people in the country to whose lives this vote will actually make a significant difference is that the plebiscite is unwanted, surely that should be conclusive?

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