The following Letter to the Editor was written by AME’s National Convener, Alex Greenwich, and was published in The Australian on 3 August 2012:
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CHRIS Bowen, Ed Husic and John Alexander have every right to represent their electorates by voting against marriage equality if that’s what their electorates want.
But there’s no certainty this is what they want unless selective hearing is the only polling method used.
The most reliable polls of their electorates taken over two years ago by Newspoll, found opinions fairly evenly split with a minority opposing reform in all three cases.
It’s fair to assume that since then support for reform has increased, as it has around the nation.
In acknowledgment of this, Bowen promised to conduct a community consultation, but never did, while Alexander and Husic have also failed to conduct any comprehensive surveys of their electorates.
Instead, Bowen and Husic have decided to vote against marriage equality by hiding behind what they say are the views of their Christian, Muslim and western-suburb voters.
What they are doing is stereotyping, and like all stereotyping it is morally and factually wrong.
What these MPs don’t understand is that as long as respected political figures hide behind stereotypes of their constituents, they are denying many of their Christian, migrant and suburban constituents political leaders who will stand up for what these constituents value most about being Australian.
Of course, the Coalition is most to blame for failing to represent electors. Tony Abbott has taken the drastic step of breaking a long-held party tradition by denying its members the opportunity to vote according to their conscience.
This means Coalition MPs such as Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey, Teresa Gambaro, Kelly O’Dwyer and Josh Frydenberg will not have the right to represent what they all know is strong support for reform within their electorates.
Alex Greenwich, Australian Marriage Equality, Sydney, NSW