Pyne doesn’t think Libs will cross the floor over marriage

Liberal MP Christopher Pyne says he’s unaware of any Liberal MPs contemplating crossing the floor to bring on a vote on marriage equality in the parliament.

Appearing on SKY News this morning Pyne faced a series of questions from political report Samantha Maiden over the long running marriage equality debate.

Pyne, who is the manager of government business in the house, dismissed a scenario where government MPs could side with the Labor Party to bring forward a debate on marriage equality.

“I’m not aware of anyone even contemplating that.” Pyne responded.

The Minister for Defence Industry, who recently faced a barrage of criticism for suggesting that marriage equality might occur “sooner rather than later”, said the party was committed to its plebiscite policy.

“We have a policy. It’s the policy to have a national vote, and the only person standing between marriage equality and Australians is Bill Shorten.

“If he decided to support a national vote, he could do it tomorrow. If he had decided to support it last year, we would have had a national vote in February, we would well have had marriage equality by now.”  Pyne said.

Pyne wouldn’t be drawn on whether he thought the policy should be changed before the government heads to the next election.

“There is no proposal to change that policy.” Pyne said. The South Australian MP said there no point in speculating about the issue.

OIP Staff