Imagine if in today’s society only men got to decide on womens rights. Thats not fair?
In my opinion this is similar to what the plebiscite is like, majority of the Australian population are heterosexual and only 1.2% of Australian adults identify as homosexual yet all Australians decide on the rights of gay and lesbian people.
Today Im talking about the topic: Do we need a plebiscite for marriage equality and my answer to this question is no. For those who don't know what a plebiscite is; in Australia it means a popular vote on an important public question. It can be distinguished from a ‘referendum’, which is a popular vote on a proposed amendment to the Commonwealth Constitution or a State constitution.
However the legal consequences of a plebiscite and a referendum are different. A plebiscite is best described as a way for testing public opinion on an issue, and parliament are not required to act in accordance with the result. In contrast, the result of a federal referendum is legally binding. This means that the government can still vote against legalising marriage equality. If this is the case why vote on an issue that we already know the outcome of. The results of countless opinion polls speak for themselves. In the poll, commissioned by Australian Marriage Equality they discovered that almost three-quarters of Australians (72%) now support the legalisation of same-sex marriage. The vast majority of Australians believe everyone should have the right to marriage, so is the
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The government will spend around $160 million of taxpayer money to confirm what every opinion poll has shown to be true. But thats not all, the plebiscite could cost the economy over $500 million. The cost to the community of funding the two campaigns for and against the proposal would cost $66 million, while the impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the LGBTQI community amounts to $20