Mr PYNE (Sturt—Leader of the House, Minister for Industry and Innovation and Science) (15:32): I am pleased to speak on this motion to suspend standing orders. I would make the point that this really is too serious an issue for acrimony and shouting. It is too serious an issue for publicity seeking and playing politics. I think it is very disappointing that the Labor Party have chosen to try to make a political issue out of the relationships of men and women who want to be treated equally under the law. I was aware that they were going to move this political stunt today, and it is very disappointing that Labor would come into the House and try to get some political benefit out of what many Australians, good people—Liberal voters, Labor voters, Greens voters, Independent voters—want, which is to have marriage equality; to be treated the same under the law. My views on this matter are well known. I support marriage equality. But this is not a debate about whether or not you support marriage equality; this is a debate about whether there should be a suspension of standing orders to have a vote on this private member's bill. That is what this debate is about: whether there should be a suspension of standing orders to stop all other government business in order to have a vote on a private member's bill. So, what is the process for private members' bills? All members in the House know what the process is. They know there is no vote on private members' bills or private members' motions. They know that therefore many motions and bills are brought into the House and put on the Notice Paper for a debate in this chamber on issues that need to be aired and elevated. That is a good part of private members' business; that is the idea. Some things are brought into the House to be elevated because there will not be a vote. Members know that they can give their constituents a hearing, a platform, but they do not have to disagree with party policy, they do not have to determine government policy, because it is private members' business, and private members' business does not come to a vote. Therefore this motion to suspend standing orders is entirely out of order. It would allow a vote on a private member's bill, which would establish an important precedent and be stepping outside the role of private members' business. That is one reason that the government will not support this suspension of standing orders, the second reason being that we on this side of the House do not want to play politics with this issue. It is too important, and people take it too seriously, for people to try to play cheap politics around it. The third reason the government will not support the suspension of standing orders is that we have a very clear policy on this matter. We will not be having a vote of the members of this parliament to determine whether we support marriage equality. We will give every Australian a free vote in a plebiscite after the election. The extraordinary flaw in the member for Griffith's argument is that she says we must have a free vote in 2016—that we must do it today—but the Labor Party's policy is that in 2019 they are not allowed to have a free vote. Apparently in 2016 they must have a free vote at all costs but their policy is not to have a free vote in three years from now. What a ludicrous position! The principle is that you are either in favour of a free vote or you are not. If you are in favour of a free vote then have that policy into the future until you achieve one. But the Labor Party policy, apparently brokered by the deputy leader at the ALP conference this year, is this ludicrous hybrid policy where they would have a free vote now but in 2019 will not have a free vote. It is utterly ridiculous and exposes the Labor Party as utter hypocrites on the issue, because if they genuinely believed in a free vote why would they deny their members a free vote in three years from now? The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Leader of the House will resume his seat. The member for McEwen on a point of order? Mr Mitchell: No, it is all right. Mr PYNE: I do not intend to take my entire time. The government is happy to put its position why we will not support it and then get on with the vote. The Labor Party's position about a free vote today but no free vote in three years is so ridiculous that they actually lost a senator over it. Joe Bullock resigned last night as a senator for Western Australia because he sees the flaw in the Labor Party's position. They have lost a senator from Western Australia because of this harebrained scheme they came up with at the ALP conference. On this side of the House we will give everyone in Australia a free vote. Your vote will be the same as my vote, Deputy Speaker Scott. You will be back in civilian life, as we say in the parliament for those who have been here a while, and your vote will be worth the same as my vote, assuming the good burghers of Sturt re-elect me at the coming election. Everybody in the gallery will have the same vote as everybody on the floor of the House. That is a genuine request asking the Australian people what they think. That is a good policy because this is a difficult issue for the Australian public. This is a significant societal change. I support that change. One of the reasons I support that change is my experience as a member of parliament. I have seen the impact of same-sex households not having legal rights and, because of that lack of legal rights, not being able to support the children that they have been fostering or adopting. I think it is time to give those same-sex households the same stability, the same rights as those in opposite-sex households. So I do support a yes vote in the plebiscite, and that is how I will campaign, assuming I am re-elected, after the election. But there are people in my electorate who strongly disagree with me, and I want to give them the chance to have a vote and make a decision. If the Australian public's view is that there will be no change to the Marriage Act then that is the decision of the Australian public, and it is right and proper that they should be able to make that decision. So we will not be supporting the suspension of standing orders. We do not want to play politics with this issue. There is a fundamental flaw in the Labor Party's position, which is that they demand a free vote today but they deny a free vote in three years time. I believe and the government believes that we have the right policy, which is to ask the Australian people what their view is and give them the opportunity to indicate to us where they want us to go in the plebiscite. I should deal with one last-minute issue. The member for Griffith said some members of my party and the National Party have said that they will not follow the views of the plebiscite. They are allowed to say that. This is a democracy; it is not a Stalinist state. The point is that it is obviously beyond the wit of the Labor Party to work out how to get around that issue. But it is not beyond my wit. The easiest thing to do is to pass a bill through this parliament establishing the plebiscite and the last act before royal assent as the question of the plebiscite and whether it says yes or no to that bill. The bill will never come back to the House of Representatives for people to vote against the will of the people. It can easily be in the act of parliament that the plebiscite is the last part of the process and then, once it is passed—if it is passed—it goes directly to the Governor-General for royal assent. It is not beyond the wit of this parliament to make the plebiscite—the will of the people—the final act that determines whether the law changes. The fact that the Labor Party cannot work that out is kind of indicative of many of the flaws and weaknesses in the Labor Party's gene pool, which is why they are not fit for government. The government will certainly be voting against the suspension of standing orders and resuming normal programming because we have a significant agenda to work through while the Labor Party continues with these pathetic political stunts.