Sen Robert Simms: Turnbull needs to show leadership on marriage

Greens Senator Robert Simms has highlighted the motion passed in Western Australia’s Legislative Assembly calling on the Turnbull government to abandon plans for a plebiscite vote on marriage equality.

Noting that the federal senate had recently passed a similar motion the Green’s spokeman for LGBTIQ issues said “the clock is ticking” and called on the Prime Minister to show leadership on the issue.

“There is still an opportunity for Mr Turnbull to break with the Abbott Prime-ministership and show some leadership on this issue.” Senator Simms said.

“At the moment Mr Turbull is in The Lodge but Tony Abbott is his ghost writer, he is still drafting these policies, still setting the policy agenda of this government from his political grave.”

Senator Simms said Mr Abbott needs to break with the Abbott government and give a free vote on the issue. Senator Simms said suggests that a plebiscite was allowing progress on the issue was “nonsense” and “a sham”.

The Greens MP said the expensive option of a plebiscite was simply a roadblock to reform. The Australian Electoral Commission has estimated the cost of the exercise to be $158 million.

Senator Simms accused supporters of the plebiscite option of just killing time until they found some other way of: “furthering Tony Abbott’s ridiculous ideological opposition to marriage equality in this country.”

The motion from the Western Australian Legislative Assembly joins similar motions from the NSW and Tasmanian parliament.

Watch Senator Simms speech below.

Update: An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that the motion was in the WA House of Representatives instead of the Legislative Assembly. (and yes we know the upper house in WA is the Legislative Council).