We have a petition with 100,000 signatures in support of SSM to be delivered to Parliament! http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/gay-marriage-would-win-respect-says-mckellan/story-e6frfku9-1225867172674 Polls continue to say that over 60% of Australians support SSM, this is quite clearly a MAJORITY but our fuddy duddy pollies continue to ignore us. When will they give us what we want?
In Germany this is alread reality and I heard that gays can get married in some US states too ie Hawawii or California. Even if 98% of the populaiton is against it, who does it hurt?
who cares about australia? sounds like a buch of (*)(*)(*)(*) to me....100,000? with all the problems in the world today and all they can think about is being gay?... who cares about that whole island.
The point is, groupthink, is that we are moving foward, and have been for a long time. Americans are the opposite to us - most of them want to deny marriage rights to gays, but most Australians want to extend those rights to them. The problem we have is making our government listen.
Contact Nick Xenophon and get him to put forward a bill... ooops, Nick's from South Australia, where the majority are socially conservative. If he does that, he may lose his seat!
extend gay rights? ALL the problems with australia....and all they care about is gay rights?...lol they dont mind having government censored internet...or a media that is completely propagandized... or all being slaves to the queen of england... they dont care... take away their rights to be gay.....ohh no... watch out they will wake the sleeping giant.
The government can censor internet all it likes but you can get around it quite easily if you know what to do. Most people want us to remain a republic so we are slaves to the old biddy for a bit longer. Mores the pity. Media propaganda? Sure, but people are smart (most of them) and know when they are being fed bull(*)(*)(*)(*).
That was a political ploy to get the family first party on side. Any intelligent Australian knew that they had nothing to fear. Obviously you are unaware of the many independent news medias available to us. Yes, because the Queen wields oh so much authority and power over us.
if british royalty profit AT ALL from the existance of australia...then yes i consider them slaves of the queen... more correctly...surf's
I actually like having the Queen on my five dollar notes. I couldn't draw mustaches on her, otherwise.
Whoopee, she's on our $5 note. Such a display of awesome power . And I suggest you read up on serfdom before trying to insinuate that we are serfs. The only way that they profit from our existence is through trade with us, just like any other country.
contact wiki, tell them "they got it all wrong" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia then contact the queen and tell her to leave austraalia alon and she is not your queen.
Read your quote. She is 'styled' as Queen of Australia, however, she has no power to do anything in Australia. If she were to tell us to go to war, we would easily ignore her as if she was a stark raving lunatic that one meets on the streets. Hell, not even the British Parliament can make us do anything. But she is our queen. And I wouldn't have to contact her to tell her that, she already knows she has no authority in the Australian political system.
ill let you get back on topic, we will leave it at this... she is your queen.....she is a powerless queen...lol
Not quite, but it is typically American to spout off on a subject in which you have no idea what you are talking about. Back to the OP - why is it that the politics is seized like this? When I have seen this elsewhere its because the "champion" party needs cooperation on other issues, and has determined it is the easier policy to abandon in favor of getting concessions on other issues. This is because the population feels more strongly about the other issues than the policy in question, even though they support both. For the "champion" party, the policy becomes a useful sacrificial lamb so they keep verbally supporting it, even mouthing words of outrage on occasion. As its importance as a sacrifice increases, so does the likelihood of getting actual political movement on the policy decreases.
It's not only that, but the way in which the Australian system is compromised, that 60% may be (though, this is only a generalisation) located in less then 50% of the electorates. This means that even though the majority of people support it, they cannot get the numbers in parliament as their numbers are localised. As an example, in my state's last State election, the Liberal party won (from memory) 52% of the vote, however, their numbers were localised so it only translated in 18 out of the 47 seats in Parliament. Contrarily, the Labour party won less then 50% of the vote but still won 26 seats because they won the majorities in the majority of electorates.
That's a pretty small percentage... ... considering the population of Australia... ... sounds like most of `em got better sense.
I thought the Liberal party was the Republican equivalent in Aus (and Labor the Democrat). So I would have thought that the Liberals were against gay marriage, but now I have written it i can see that this doesn't make sense. Still, its odd to think of the right-wing party being for gay rights...
As an Arab, i dont mind gays, (which is VERY uncommon in our culture, and religion, aka both Islam and Christianity), yet i have several homosexual friends, and i dont mind that, unless they try to like do a move or anything... anyways, the point is... why do gays need to get married?? i mean, between men and women, they need marriage mostly for Children's sake, and for religious reasons... but Homosexuals are doing something against god wills (aka not religious), and wont get children... so why need to get married... i REALLY dont get it... can anyone explain to me??
If this goes through the word "marriage" will no longer exist. How can it be defined as "between a man and a woman"?? Personally I do not care what people do but no matter which way you look at it; a gay couple cannot conceive a baby without the intervention of a third party.