Senate postal survey inquiry completed - it was as fucked as we said it was (video)

Excerpt from inquiry (click to enlarge)

You can download the full survey here (PDF).

It's worth noting that this survey never had to happen. The numbers had been on parliament since the last election to pass it, if Turnbull allowed the gov to have a free conscience vote (Howard allowed 5 free votes in 11 years). However he failed to stand up to/lead the far right conservatives in his party, who were convinced the years of private polling by large polling organisations showing strong support for marriage equality, were wrong.

They imagined a "silent majority" who allegedly were to petrified to admit to pollsters from the comfort of their own home that they supported marriage equality, and therefore said they didn't. One wonders where all these petrified people went during the postal survey as there were a large number of people all too willing to preach their bigotry and lies about us online and in conversations. Even to the point of a man on an ABC Melbourne radio show calling in and voicing his appreciation of Hitler for rounding us up and killing us in his concentration camps, live to air.

We defeated the plebiscite that the far right insisted on, with thankfully Labor siding with us and voting it down the enabling legislation in the senate. However undeterred, the far right demanded the postal survey as a replacement to the plebiscite. Why a postal survey? Because it needed no enabling legislation and therefore the senate was powerless to stop it. LGBT groups went to the High Court to try and stop it over the allocation of public money ($120 million) without parliamentary approval. We lost, and the survey went ahead.

Turnbull threw us to the wolves because he was too scared he could lose his prime minster-ship without the support of the far right of his party, it's as simple as that. We became canon fodder in his gov's internal warfare, and for the sake of Turnbull's political career. It was particularly galling after the positive result of the survey to have the spectacle of Turnbull crowing about what a good idea it all was and taking credit for marriage equality finally passing in Australia. We''l never forget what that self absorbed prick did to us.

It passed despite Turnbull's acquiescence to every demand from the far right to delay and stop it. Despite him unleashing all the hatred and venom that the survey gave people a right to "have their say". It cost our community dearly, but there was no acknowledgement by the gov of that. This report from the senate does.


The senate has completed it's inquiry into the mental hell that was unleashed on us before, and during the postal survey that was hoisted on us by this gov. No surprises that it was as entirely fucked as we said it would be, and indeed was.

Of course now we have the Barnaby Joyce saga, with the gov in s huddle claiming his "private" life has been thrown out into the public arena for discussion, even though there appears strong evidence that public money was used inappropriately with his pregnant mistress being moved into invented jobs to his National Party colleagues offices. His excuses are lame bullshit, but the lamest of all is his protestations that it's his private life and shouldn't have been made public. I wonder how glassed jaws Joyce would feel if the country had a National vote on his relationship, complete with debates and a public campaign from either side? One rule for us, and another for them.