Hung like a parliament

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 11:18:23 +1000

Two weeks after the election and we still don’t know who will be the next Prime Minister of Australia. We’ve had the Green’s Adam Bandt and independent Andrew Wilkie side with Labor, giving them a 74-73 lead in the race for power. However there are three independents left to make up their minds. So what happens if they split and we end up with 75-75?

I can see a few things that could happen. The first thing that happens in a new parliament is that the speaker is elected. The independents would have agreed to vote with the government on supply and confidence votes, but they could still go against them when voting for the speaker. If a speaker is elected, then the side where the speaker comes from will be down one person, as the speaker only votes in the case of a tie. If there is a tie when voting for the speaker, there is no casting vote so they would have to try another candidate. This is the point that we may find that no speaker can be elected, and therefore parliament is borked and new elections required.

Marriage – why do I have the right, but not gay people?

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 01:25:54 +1000

There was an equal love/gay marriage march held in Brisbane today. Sadly I didn’t make it due to other plans, but from what I understand it received an excellent turnout. I’m not going to talk about the march, since I wasn’t there. However I do want to cover the topic of gay marriage.

The Marriage Act in Australia specifies that marriage is between a man and a woman. This clarification was added to the act by the Howard Government, which isn’t surprising really. I think it was in their last term in office as well. When the Rudd Labor Government came to power, much was done to bring many rights for gay people into line with those for straight people. This includes recognising gay couples as being the same as ‘de facto’ couples and therefore receiving basically the same rights as any heterosexual couple. The right to get married was not included in this though.

The Greens on Nick Perkins Archive

Hung like a parliament

Marriage – why do I have the right, but not gay people?