Back in the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson said of Gerald Ford, who was at the time the minority leader in the House of Representatives, that Ford was so dumb he “couldn’t fart and chew gum at the same time”.
Back then, the language of LBJ’s rapier thrust needed to be toned down and thus became “walk and chew gum”.
In time, it has become the riposte by many a political leader or government when responding to criticism that they have too much on their agenda.
Being able to walk and chew gum is pretty much the base line for any decent government. Because if you can’t do that, well then clearly your intellectual capacities are somewhat limited.
Therefore, it’s odd though that you get a government so deterimed to prove it can't do two things at the same time.
Since February, Tony Abbott and his brains trust have decided on two things: firstly, that Abbott is useless as Prime Minister and so he should go back to acting as though he is the opposition leader, and secondly that the election must be fought squarely on national security issues with a side order of the economy, should that show any signs of being at all positive.
Anything else is pretty much off the agenda.
Which brings us to marriage equality.
When this week the US Supreme Court ruled that the individual states were unable to block same-sex marriage, it meant that Australia was very much left looking backward and silly.
There was a (laughably naive) time a few years back where some suggested Australia should move to make same-sex marriage legal in order to take advantage of the “pink tourism dollar” or same-sex couples coming to Australia to tie the knot.
Oh, well. At least we can market ourselves as a nation for bigots to come to enjoy being able to walk down the street knowing only a man and a woman can say they are married.
Back during the 2013 election campaign, Tony Abbott dismissed the call for marriage equality as “the fashion of the moment” (although he suggested he was talking about tradition in general and not just same-sex marriage).
Whenever pressed on the issue he would always fall back on the line, “If this issue were to come up again in the future it would be a matter for a future party room.”
The problem was it was always going to come up again because it never went away. What's more, Abbott has repeatedly demonstrated that the last thing he wants is for it to become an issue in the party room.
When the Greens and other cross bench senators put forward a bill on marriage equality, that was not enough to warrant discussion or debate in the party room. When Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek sponsored a similar bill in May, Abbott told parliament that “if, because of the actions of this parliament, a private member’s bill were to be brought on for a vote, at that point in time, this matter—as is well known—would be handled by the coalition party room.”
That’s a big “if” – given the Prime Minister effectively can determine whether or not a Private Members’ bill comes to a vote, or, as is often the case, it never gets close to that point.
The Prime Minister also told parliament that “if our parliament were to make a big decision on a matter such as this, it ought to be owned by the parliament and not by any particular party. So I would ask the Leader of the Opposition and all members of parliament to consider this as we ponder these subjects in the weeks and months to come”.
In effect, Abbott was suggesting that for any bill to have a chance it would need to be sponsored not just by the ALP but members of all parties.
The Prime Minister must be rather delighted then that he did not have to wait too many “weeks and months”, for on Wednesday such a sponsorship occurred.
It's understood that a bill proposing marriage equality will be put to the parliament in the next sitting week and will be co-sponsored by Liberals Warren Entsch and Teresa Gambaro, independents Cathy McGowan and Andrew Wilkie and the ALP’s Terri Butler and Laurie Ferguson.
So all’s good – what the Prime Minister asked for is occurring. Bring on the debate!
Err, no.
On Wednesday evening a spokesman for Mr Abbott said the issue would only be debated in the party room if a bill was to be voted on in parliament, and the spokesman noted, “It is rare for a Private Members' Bill to be voted on” – a position Tony Abbott echoed yesterday.
So the marriage equality catch 22 continues – Abbott will allow a party-room vote only if a Private Members Bill comes up for a vote, and he won’t allow a Private Members Bill to come up for a vote.
It’s also worth noting the spokesperson said “joint party room” – meaning it will include the National Party. I wonder how socially progressive Liberal MPs such as Malcolm Turnbull feel knowing their ability to have a free vote on the issue is dependent upon the votes of people from another party?
The hard-right on Thursday quickly came out to defend their position. Unfortunately, those like Senator Abetz showed the difficulty of maintaining a discriminatory position without looking stupid. He argued the issue was just “the latest fad” that should not be pursued because “we are in the 'Asian century'” and no Asian countries allow same-sex marriage.
Thus we have a man defending the maintenance of the traditional Christian values by suggesting we should follow the norms on non-Christian cultures.
Interesting logic.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman on Wednesday and Tony Abbot reiterated yesterday also noted that “the government’s priority is strong economic management and keeping Australians safe.”
Because, naturally, when discussing the issue of marriage you need to remind people of the economy and national security, as though it’s impossible to simultaneously debate marriage equality and maintain national security.
But invoking the fear of national security is quite apt, because behind all of this is a fear from Abbott and his hard-line conservative supporters of being rolled by the party-room should it come to a vote, and also the fear of the issue setting that same wing of the party against him should it be allowed to come to a vote.
Already conservative commentators such as Miranda Devine have begun rattling the sabre for the far right of the Liberal Party with suggestions support could shift to Scott Morrison should marriage equality be seen to be getting a run.
Thus we are really in the position where Abbott doesn’t want to debate marriage equality not because he is so dumb and ignorant that he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, but because he is too scared to do so.
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