Would be better still if they just did their jobs as representatives, but weren't you characterising that as shoving gay marriage down people's throats? Maybe I misunderstood. In general I am for representative democracy over direct democracy, but I don't mind that much if Parliament sometimes wants to defer to the people on conscience issues. That does not mean we need a postal vote when the will of the people is already obvious.

The referendum or whatever you call it seems like a transparent attempt to subvert the will of the people by hoping they simply don't vote. Same thing happened when CA banned same sex marriage by referendum in an off year election.

It is interesting how you would defer to a conscience vote now when 5 years ago the proponents would have no chance of it getting up this way (which is again why this further step was needed of doing a postal vote to sure up and get a more accurate reading of society's views on what is clearly a conscience rather than a political voting issue).

80% response suggests to me that people were actively engaged in the debate and wanted a say.

Please note the use of the word "hoping". ChrisV was kind enough document most of this event in Politics, and it seems like the will of the people was patently clear just through opinion polling. In light of that the only hope that opponents of same sex marriage would have via referendum is that their side was more motivated to vote on the issue than their opponents.

Would the same amendments to the gay marriage bill have been put up if they decided to use the opinion polls as the measure of the voters' views on the issue rather than a plebiscite or survey? I wouldn't have thought so - the 40% or 45% of the vote that they would have or indeed secured would have got that additional weight than they would have got otherwise if it was just based on the opponents recorded in an opinion poll. I really do think too that basing it on an opinion poll trivialises the opponent's position.

Using an opinion poll only trivializes the opposing side by pointing out how unpopular they are?

Yeah well I don't know if it's true or not that a conscience vote wouldn't have got up, but neither did we hear any of this LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE **** from the Right back when the public was in favour and Parliament weren't. Not until the issue started to become a political problem.

Americans ITT may or may not know that voting is usually compulsory in Australia, for state and federal elections and for referenda. I just asked my mother, who turned 71 today, and she doesn't recall a previous voluntary vote in her lifetime for anything above local councils. The choice of a voluntary postal vote was transparently Boomers attempting to once again take a **** on the political will of young people.

I had to spend some time convincing my Mom to vote (yes) as she was angry about the process being forced upon us. I had to explain that not voting would not operate as a protest and that if this **** worked, it would be in the playbook for every other issue going forward. Another guy I know actually didn't vote, for the same reason of wanting to protest. You can see what they were hoping would happen.

I suspect that many people would have also voted no based on the arrogance of the proponents' thinking that the issue was so cut and dry that a plebiscite or survey wasn't needed.

But I think most people will appreciate, even if they didn't think it was necessary, that Turnbull stuck to his word to give the people a say and I think that together with his support really produced the result we saw.

A lot of proponents under-estimate the influence that having a conservative leader supporting a progressive change to the law brings to this sort of vote as time and again we have seen that referendums on proposed changes to the Constitution or system of government (becoming a republic, for example) fail because both sides of politics weren't on board.

I semi-agree that there was no real discernible difference and that the result was moot, but again YOUR point was that he stuck to his pledges, I pointed out two clear examples where he has not.
I take the view that it's no different than any other legislation that gets passed. The political vs conscience argument is idiotic as Howard changed the Marriage Act already without a plebiscite, and you brought up an example that passed the Victorian government this year (euthanasia) without the need for a plebiscite or postal survey.
And this wasn't built into Turnbull's initial and ongoing projections for what reason? He harped on and on how it would be built faster and a lot cheaper than the Labor solution (even though the Libs solution is not as future-proofed) and now when it's clear that can't happen it's 'lol sorry, blame Labor'.

I haven't done much research into wireless tech and solutions but the little I have I tend to agree with you on that point.

Re Howard changing the marriage act - I think you would agree that he wasn't changing anything that the passing of the bill in the first place didn't intend. Here you can clearly see the difference.

As for again trying to say that Turnbull didn't stick to his pledge by having a survey instead of a plebiscite well I think that most of the coalition supporters that voted for him would still think that he was sticking to the spirit of what he promised and they are the only people he needs to please at the end of the day if he wants to keep his job.

Finally re NBN that you can't just turn the titanic around. The Labor party started it and under its watch went massively over-budget and would have continued on that trajectory under the Libs but maybe not to the same extent. But the Libs and he personally as the Minister were tasked with reviewing it to see what they could do to improve its outcome from their perspective of being more cost effective and decided to go down the path to begin with which still hasn't been the outcome anyone wants but still better than what it could have ended up - given the alternatives out there.

Ok, so what about euthanasia passing in Victoria?
But again, when they came up with their solution the build was already underway (as you said). Then they radically changed the build, as well as updating projected costs and completion time. Now that they won't come close to meeting either, to turn around and go 'well Labor started it' is just nonsense, and everyone can see right through it. And now they've halted the rollout to hundreds of thousands of households because it turns out running high speed internet through HFC, which Turnbull pushed for and had nothing to do with the Labor plan, is a horrible idea. Cheaper doesn't always mean cost effective, as this rollout has shown.

The potential change in the fabric of society isn't the same. Plus, I would say changes to abortion laws at a state level would mirror the significance of the change in euthanasia laws so nothing entirely inconsistent with those laws being decided by the parliament albeit again I note based on a conscience vote.

As a premise, changing to fibre to the node from fibre to the premises and where they haven't already started a particular fibre to the premise connection project under the old scheme while they were transitioning to the new one would still end up costing the government less and their arguments would be better value for money.

I suppose in hindsight that although there was still (and still is) a significant push for a national internet network and were willing to build something even if it didn't deliver the speeds that was first envisaged that they should have just stopped it entirely at the point of finishing all the fibre to the premises connection projects once they finalised their review that the NBN co was going in the wrong direction.

But to do that would have been really testing their political spine (in terms of disadvantaging areas that don't get NBN) and politicians these days lack that spine.

Can you address how the 'fabric of society' changes now that gay people are allowed to get married? I think it's incredibly inconsistent that one issue that should be put to a conscience vote gets different treatment to another

Enjoying the Strayan takeover of the thread.

While we're here, good news on the Tasmanian Labor Party putting a ban on pokies in pubs and clubs in their policy platform. Rooting hard for them to win in March as it may lead to other state parties growing some balls on the issue.

In terms of the status that it brings to their relationship - yes it does.

Well for one it is a state issue and the other is a federal one so the consistency argument doesn't apply here. I also don't believe and you can correct me here that the Andrews government took this issue to the election and it could be argued was even less of a democratic decision than the gay marriage one was (which it would have been anyway even if they did take it to the election as a plebiscite or survey would directly ask the people what they think of it rather than being part of a number of issues that parties are voted for). Also, remember it is only 1 state that has passed it so trying to compare the two is a long shot.

Clearly this is just a cheap grab for votes as I would be surprised they would stick with it if they win given the Labor Party has protected this particular gambling industry from much government intervention across the country.

I had to look up "pokies". I'm sort of surprised to see posters on a gambling forum in favor of a ban on video poker. Are the machines crooked or something?

Yes I'm pretty excited about this.
That doesn't explain how the 'fabric of society' has been altered, can you elaborate any further other than they can now get married?
Di Natale introduced a bill a few years ago, Leyonhjelm introduced one again this year and you can bet now that it's passed in Victoria it will be introduced again soon enough.
What does bringing it as a promise to the election have to do with my point? It doesn't matter that one was an election promise and one wasn't, I'm saying for the Libs to be consistent all matters of conscience votes now have to go to the public. They won't, and the Libs will have to explain why they're different.
If you include territories it's two. NT passed it then the federal government amended acts so NT and ACT couldn't pass it themselves.

Well then - how doesn't that change in status affect it? I mean why change it at all if there isn't going to be any benefit to society?

There is no comparison between the two and nor should any lessons be learned (excluding for Victoria). However, I think it is a very dangerous precedent that the Labor Party in Victoria embarked on by introducing and pushing for this bill to be passed without taking it to the people beforehand given its significance (for only the mere fact that they intend on introducing it and not how they would vote on it which is fairly obvious anyway).

Not any more crooked than the US ones. The problem with them is that they aren't confined to casinos as they are in the states (?) but are prevalent in most licensed venues (pubs, clubs, etc.) and in vast numbers (similar to the amounts in a casino). So given this prevalence they obviously are in a place that can target the most vulnerable that go to these places to eat and drink and people end up losing a large amount of pay which can then have associated detrimental effects on family and loved ones including domestic violence.

Well gay people are treated like equal human beings for one. If the 'fabric of society' beforehand was that gay people don't deserve equal rights then yes I guess the fabric of society did change.
Guess we'll just disagree that they're not comparable. That precedent passed a long time ago, or are you saying that this is the most significant legislation to ever been passed by a state government?

I see. At a minimum I know New York state offers a variant of keno in bars through the New York lottery. They call it Quick Draw. Clubs which require membership to sit and drink like a VFW, Moose, or Elks club offer pull tab games in Pennsylvania.

That being said I've never seen a bar with as many slot machines as a casino, nor would I be able to make a practical distinction between a bar or a casino in that case. Has anyone done any actual research into whether or not saturating a market with venues actually increases problem gambling?