The New Zealand First party and Michael Laws (ex-NZ First, as it happens) are arguing that the issue of marriage equality in NZ should go to a referendum.
The only problems with this are that referenda cost money ($11 million for the last one we had, and that was run at the same time as a general election), and that in order to get one happening in the first place you either need the Government to make one happen or go through the long bothersome Citizens’ Initiated Referendum process, gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures (like the anti-asset sales campaign is doing now).
Now, the only reason those last two things are really “problems” is that we’ve obviously got a government which doesn’t think this is a big enough issue to hold a binding national referendum on – and given that, neither NZ First or Michael Laws seem to actually be interested in doing the hard work themselves to make a CIR happen!
Meanwhile, because Louisa Wall’s bill got pulled from the ballot, we have an opportunity to have that debate in a slightly different way – instead of trying to get the whole voting population out ticking boxes, Parliament can send the bill to a Select Committee which can make the time to hear and accept submissions from all New Zealanders.
We still don’t know how NZ First is going to vote, either – Marriage Equality has their MPs down as abstaining, but it’s not clear if they’ll abstain or vote against.
There’s nothing inherently bad about having a referendum on marriage equality (though as a lot of people have pointed out, Switzerland didn’t give women the vote until 1971 – all because of referenda!). But we have the opportunity now to have that debate, and the people calling loudest for a referendum don’t seem to actually want to do any of the work involved themselves.
Let’s send the bill to a Select Committee and have that debate now, instead of spending over $10 million on a simple, but potentially unclear, box-ticking exercise.
Protect Families 