澳洲同性婚姻合法化战况报道

xblues

目前有2个联合党议员，9个绿党参议员和20个工党参议院支持同性婚姻。但是如果要同性婚姻通过立法，还需要另外9票的支持。本周晚些时候上议远投票，通过的可能性不大。

目前绿党支持同性婚姻，工党允许党员自由投票，但是联合党却禁止党员投赞同票，也就是联合党党员只能或者是弃权或者是反对。

塔斯马尼亚同性婚姻已经通过下议院，等待上议院进行投票。SA和ACT也在积极争取中。WA的同性婚姻正在等待下议院投票。

目前澳洲议会一共有4个提案等待投票，2个来自绿党，2个来自工党。







Carr supports same-sex marriage

September 17, 2012

Dan Harrison

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has declared his support of same-sex marriage. Photo: Reuters
FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has become the latest Labor MP to declare his support for same-sex marriage.

Senator Carr, who has not made his position on the issue public until now, yesterday told The Age his support for gay marriage was consistent with the work he did as New South Wales premier to remove discrimination against gay and lesbian people from state laws. Senator Carr said that while he respected the views of those who held more conservative opinions on marriage, to him it ''seemed churlish to deny access to marriage to groups that wanted it''.

His statement comes as the Senate begins debating proposals by four Labor senators to legalise gay marriage.

While support for same-sex marriage is stronger in the Senate than in the House of Representatives, campaigners are pessimistic about the bill passing when it goes to a vote later this week.

Nine Greens senators and at least 20 Labor senators are expected to vote for change, but a further nine votes would be needed for the bill to pass. Among those yet to declare their position are Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and independent senator Nick Xenophon.

Coalition senators are bound to vote against change. While the Coalition does not expel members for voting against its position, campaigners say those who support same-sex marriage are being strongly discouraged by the leadership from voting against its position.

Australian Marriage Equality convener Alex Greenwich said if the bill was defeated, it would not be the last vote on the issue.

He said momentum for change was ''unstoppable'' and ''huge progress'' had been made since 2009, when only six senators, all from the Greens, voted for an earlier bill to legalise same-sex marriage.

''Now we are able to see how far we've got with this campaign, and how much more we need to do,'' he said.

Mr Greenwich said in the lead-up to next year's election campaigners would target Liberals in inner city seats - such as Malcolm Turnbull, Josh Frydenberg and Kelly O'Dwyer - to put pressure on the Coalition to allow its members a free vote on the issue.

He said same-sex marriage would be legalised ''state by state and territory by territory''.

Tasmania's lower house has already passed a bill to legalise same-sex marriage, while efforts to make the change are under way in South Australia and the ACT, and the Greens have announced they will introduce gay marriage legislation in the Western Australian Parliament.

But Mr Greenwich called on supporters of gay marriage to work together. There are four separate bills to legalise gay marriage before the Federal Parliament: two sponsored by Greens and two sponsored by Labor MPs.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who has her own gay marriage bill before the Senate, accused Labor of a ''cynical ploy'' to push the issue off the agenda by putting it up for a vote before there was sufficient support for it to pass. She said she had invited other senators to co-sponsor her bill.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion ... .html#ixzz26hLWGBRk

[ 本帖最后由 xblues 于 17-9-2012 14:49 编辑 ]