Prime minister points to Julia Gillard and Penny Wong as Labor figures who once opposed same-sex marriage

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Malcolm Turnbull has marked his first anniversary as prime minister by introducing an enabling bill for a plebiscite he once argued against – and accusing Labor of “preaching hatred” in the marriage equality debate.



The prime minister used question time to blast what he termed “the extraordinary hateful expressions” being used by Labor figures against people who don’t support the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

“The way in which the leader of the opposition talked about haters crawling out from under rocks if there was a plebiscite – what sort of language is that to talk about Australians?” the prime minister told the chamber on Wednesday.

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Turnbull pointed out that Labor figures, including the former prime minister Julia Gillard and the current Senate leader, Penny Wong, once opposed same-sex marriage.

“Was Penny Wong a homophobe when she opposed same-sex marriage? Of course not.

“The Labor party has got to stop preaching this hatred.”

Turnbull’s clear pitch to conservative sentiment follows cabinet’s decision, confirmed on Tuesday, to allocate taxpayer funding to both the yes and the no campaigns for the marriage equality plebiscite, which the government wants to conduct next February.

The decision to allocate public funding to the campaigns has tipped the balance for Labor. The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, is expected to recommend Labor sink the plebiscite at the next caucus meeting. Without Labor support, the government will lack the parliamentary numbers for the requisite enabling legislation.

Labor used the Turnbull milestone to point to internal government disagreements, particularly about superannuation, which is still the subject of consultation within government ranks and has been an issue on which the former prime minister Tony Abbott has made forceful interventions.

The opposition devoted several questions to superannuation during Wednesday’s question time, asking whether the Coalition remained committed to the $500,000 cap on after-tax contributions, the most contentious element of the package, and whether the government would sit down and negotiate with the opposition to salvage the reforms.

Abbott for his part continued his recent practice of media interventions, speaking to his long-time friend Alan Jones about the events of a year ago.

Abbott told Jones he knew nothing of the planning that went on before Turnbull took the party leadership and he described his exit from the prime ministership as “disappointing.”

“I really don’t want to go over the entrails of the events a year ago. Of course they were disappointing,” Abbott said. “Of course I think it shouldn’t have happened.

“But it did happen and, as many people say, and rightly so, we’ve got to look at the world as it is, rather than the world we would like it to be or as, maybe even, it should be.

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“We have to look at the world as it is. We have a government. We have a leader. The best government we can have at the moment is the Turnbull government and that’s the government I support.”

Abbott used the same interview to have a dig at the current treasurer, Scott Morrison, by contending that Joe Hockey, Morrison’s predecessor, was the “last treasurer who was serious about a structural reform budget”.

He meant the 2014 budget, which led to a plunge in public support for the Coalition given it contained a number of broken election promises and measures that disproportionately impacted low and middle-income earners.

The Abbott government never recovered from the political body blow landed by the 2014 budget. But Abbott saw events differently. “I think that the more time passes the better Joe Hockey looks,” Abbott told Jones.