Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated that bringing in new laws to protect religious freedom and freedom of speech will be an area of major focus for his government over the coming months. Speaking to Sky News the Prime Minister said they were no situations at the moment that required the laws to be implemented […]
Michael McCormack stepped into the role of Acting Prime Minister for the first time this week, and gave his first major speech since he took over as the leader of The Nationals. Appearing at the National Press Club on Tuesday, McCormack spoke about the importance of regional communities and investment in infrastructure before taking questions […]
Health Minister Greg Hunt has raised concerns about “freedom of speech” while being questioned about his views on gay conversion therapy this week. Speaking with Patricia Karvelas on Radio National, the conversation quickly turned from discussing The Greens’ newly announced policy to legalise cannabis use for all adults to freedom of speech and the Victorian […]
Liberal Senator James Paterson has announced he has developed his own marriage bill, which has more emphasis on religious protections than the bill put forward by colleague Senator Dean Smith. Writing in The Australian, Senator Paterson said he’d developed his marriage bill to ensure there were sufficiently robust protects for freedom of religion, freedom of speech and […]
Equality advocates have launched a campaign against any new legal discrimination against same-sex and other couples if the Marriage Act is amended to allow same-sex couples to marry. The campaign includes a webform to allow equality supporters to email MPs, a survey of the LGBTI community to determine its views on further discrimination in the […]
Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi says the Turnbull government can’t consider looking at changing the marriage laws until after it deals with the citizenship crisis. Appearing on Sky News earlier today Senator Bernardi said he hoped the polls showing that the ‘Yes’ campaign would have a clear win in the postal survey were wrong. A […]
The President of Rainbow Labor WA has been criticised for calling Liberal MP Andrew Hastie a “homophobe”. The conservative MP has criticised the comments that were made at a marriage equality event, and said they are example of why greater protections will be needed for freedom of speech if the ‘Yes’ campaign are successful in […]
Labor will encourage the government to accept Dean Smith’s private members bill for marriage equality, should the marriage postal survey return a ‘yes’ result. The government has promised MPs will be allowed a conscience vote on the issue of marriage equality should the $120 million dollar postal survey exercise indicate that the Australian people support […]
A Western Australian Anglican Bishop is threatening to stop registering all marriages should the YES campaign be successful in the marriage postal survey. Gary Nelson, the Bishop of the diocese of North West Australia, has told The West Australian that he will stop all marriages, if he’s not satisfied with the details of the legislation that […]
A group of conservative MPs are rushing to create their own marriage bill in preparation for the ‘Yes’ case being successful in the national postal survey. The group, which includes WA Liberal Ian Goodenough and Andrew Hastie, are working on their own private members bill which will have greater protections for religious freedom than those […]
