More than any other issue, the Coalition's refusal to allow a free vote on same sex marriage threatens to define this term of Parliament and seal the government's fate at the next election.
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Public debate in living rooms and at kitchen tables has left the government behind. Increasingly, the Coalition's unwillingness to adapt leave it at odds with much of the population heading to the next poll, and hand Opposition Leader Bill Shorten a potent weapon until then.
By choosing to give its failed idea of a national plebiscite another push, the Liberal party has ignored the clear preference of most Australians that same sex couples have the option to marry. A government running an industrialised, respected country of 24 million people has reduced itself to justified ridicule over its prolonged and self-indulgent agonising over a matter that, unlike many issues, boasts broad consensus among voters.
To bury its head in the sand despite broad support for same sex marriage on Monday was not only a discouraging reflection of the state of Australian politics. It revealed a Coalition unable to shed petty ideological misgivings for the adult business of governing.
If the government hopes that it is heaping pressure back on Labor and the Greens by sticking to its plebiscite policy, it's wrong. The public will take this decision for what it is: an absurd compromise from a party riven by dysfunction.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has inherited a potentially explosive issue, one that could define his leadership and seal its fate. How is he to manage the demands of his party's hard right without an insurgency that could topple him? His approach has been to keep it onside by acquiescing on same sex marriage. This will prolong, but not stabilise, his tenure. Voters perceive Mr Turnbull as weak and do-nothing, and his fidelity to the hard right's agenda is largely to blame. Ultimately he will have to decide whether the terms of the right-wing's loyalty are worth the public's disaffection with the compromises it forces, none more so ridiculous than a $122 million postal plebiscite.
Under the government plan, the Australian Bureau of Statistics would have to coordinate a postal vote risking all manner of complications that could undermine its result. Aside from High Court challenges, and uncertainty around the plebiscite's authority, the ABS is arguably in no shape to carry out such a task. While Australians have made up their mind on the issue, a postal plebiscite could draw out the debate several years more. Meanwhile, the government spends more money deferring a resolution, while professing thrift elsewhere.
Whether or not those MPs who voted to maintain its push for a plebiscite on Monday actually disagree with a parliamentary vote on same sex marriage, the Coalition is signing its own electoral death warrant with its paralysis on the issue. The government will carry the issue like an albatross around its neck heading into the next election, a burden it could have easily rid itself of had the party decided to listen to the will of voters.
