Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott is leading the charge as the ‘NO’ campaign for marriage equality ramps up, but voters in his own electorate don’t agree with him.

- Advertisement -

The MP declared this week that the postal survey to measure whether Australians want marriage equality was about more than whether or not gay couples should be allowed to wed.

Speaking to the media Abbott said the campaign was about religious freedoms and being opposed to political correctness.

A poll conducted by the Australia Institute has revealed that voters in Abbott’s electorate of Warringah overwhelming want to see the laws changed.

Seven hundred people were asked if they support gay couple sbeing allowed to wed.

Almost seven in 10 (69.7%) said the agreed that same sex couples should be allowed to get married. 25.7% said they were opposed to same sex marriage and 4.6% were undecided.

Across all age groups, a majority of people supported marriage equality. Even among older voters support was still considerable at 57%.

Two thirds of Liberal voters supported that laws being changed, and support was higher among Labor voters with 88% of people surveyed showing support. The only political group that backed the former PM’s position was One Nation voters.

Abbott will join another former Prime Minister to spearhead the ‘No’ campaign. John Howard, whose government changed the marriage laws in 2004 to stop same-sex couples being able to wed, will play a leading role in the campaign.

The former PM’s are hoping to repeat the effective collaboration they had in 1999 when they both argued against Australia becoming a republic.

This morning David Flint, the former National Convener for Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, appeared on ABC radio and said the combination of Howard and Abbott would be a great boost to the ‘No’ campaign.

Flint said (that despite the issue being in the news for over a decade), there hadn’t really been a debate on whether or not gay couples should be allowed to wed.

“I think so far, there hasn’t really been a debate.  So far the people haven’t heard the other side.

“There’s been such a predominance of those who would want to change things, that the people haven’t heard the examples.”

Flint said the reason so many Australians considered changing the marriage laws to be a “boutique” or “low-order” issue was because they didn’t realise that marriage is a fundamental institution in western society.

The former chair of the ABC, has been open about his own homosexuality but never discusses his personal life, and never identifies his partner of more than 30 years.

Earlier this week Flint told Sydney radio station 2GB that one of the issues Australians had not given serious consideration to was the possibility that marriage equality could lead to sexual assault.

Flint said Australian only had to look to the United Kingdom to see where marriage equality would lead.

“We now see in the United Kingdom, moving from the decision by the Cameron government to introduce same-sex marriage … the present government is saying on the basis of that — this is extraordinary — we can now move to another stage, and that is by statutory declaration, you can change your sex.

“So let me think of an extreme example, if you like to go into women’s lavatories and rape women, you can now say ‘I’m a woman’. You file a declaration and you become a woman, and you are legally entitled to go into a lavatory or a dressing room. It’s an idiotic thing.”

OIP Staff