Referendum will resolve marriage question

AUGUST 13, 2015: THE people should determine the definition of marriage in a constitutional referendum that offers voters two clear choices about that definition.I believe there should be a constitutional referendum and it should offer the people the choice between two definitions of marriage to be inserted into the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.At present, the Constitution does not define marriage in Section 51 (xxi); it merely states that the Commonwealth has the power to make laws with respect to marriage.A definition of marriage could be added onto Section 51 (xxi) or a subsection of Section 51 (xxi).The referendum should offer voters a choice between:

• Defining marriage as a union between two persons, including persons of the same sex in the Constitution: or
• Defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman in the Constitution; or
• Making no change to the Constitution.

Having the option of no change to the Constitution would need to be part of the referendum question but really the public debate will be between marriage as we currently know it or marriage which includes same sex couples and I have no doubt the people will vote for one of those two options.The referendum will bring finality to the question because the matter will then be resolved in the Constitution and Parliament’s time will not be wasted on this topic ever again.Enabling a multiple choice referendum may require changes to the Referendum Machinery Provisions Act or it could be offered by posing two yes/no questions on each of the definition options.Tight rules around the referendum would need to be in place to ensure fairness in the debate.I will be pushing for equal public funding to both sides of the campaign and restrictions around third party advertising along with foreign donations.We will also need to ensure media outlets, particularly free-to air television and radio stations will commit to accepting advertisements from both sides of the campaign and not impose the sort of censorship that we’ve seen by Seven and Ten, in rejecting the Australian Marriage Alliance’s completely innocuous television advertisement.I believe that the cultural institution of marriage is an issue which should be resolved by 24 million Australians, rather than 226 politicians in Canberra.