“It is certainly on the move,” agreed Prime Minister Julia Gillard, when the question of same sex marriage was put to her by Nathan, Nat & Shaun this morning on Nova 93.7.
Nova has been amongst several radio networks championing same sex marriage, and the PM’s answers in this interview indicated she might be softening her former stance.
“I do understand that there is a real movement here and I think that movement will keep carrying the debate. The Federal Parliament has voted on it once and it certainly won’t be the last time it votes on it,” the PM continued.
On the back of Ellen DeGeneres’ visit to Australia and an interview with her mother Betty DeGeneres, the same sex marriage debate has been sparked again.
Nathan said, “in an interview with Betty DeGeneres she said – I would love to get a message across to your Prime Minister, maybe she should pay attention to what’s going on in the United States right now, a lot of people are going to find out we are on the wrong side of history, marriage equality will be ok.”
“What do you have to say to that statement?” he asked the PM:
“I can understand she would have a very passionate view and across the Australian community people have got strong views one way or the other. The best thing I thought I could do on this issue is to make sure that those strong views got a guernsey in Federal Parliament and that I wasn’t wandering around trying to tell people what to do or what they should believe in… Let people have a free vote on same sex marriage, on amending the marriage act.
“We on our side of politics did have a free vote, unfortunately across the parliament there wasn’t a free vote and I think that’s the next stage, that everybody in parliament gets to come and vote in accordance with their conscience… Over the last few years we have debated this at our Labor Party conferences… people wanted to see a conscience vote.”
With an election looming, the Labor party will be keen to get every voter possible on this and other issues, and the PM has been working the FM stations hard in recent times. Expect to hear more of her on breakfast radio in the next few months.