Which MPs Voted Against the Same Sex Marriage Law?

Yesterday was a hard-won, historic victory for the Australian marriage equality movement. After a postal survey process that took a huge emotional toll on the queer community, it was clear that Federal Parliament had a mandate to legislate for same sex marriage as soon as possible. Overwhelmingly clear: the majority of people in every state voted “Yes” in the survey.

But not every MP saw things this way. In an emotional down-to-the-wire vote in the House of Representatives yesterday, four elected representatives chose to sit on the “No” vote side of the chamber—and, perhaps, the wrong side of history.

You know Bob Katter. Of “let a thousand blossoms bloom” fame. Very concerned about the crocodile problem in Northern Queensland. Katter made several bizarre rambling speeches in the House yesterday, none of them coherent and none of them particularly relevant to the legislation at hand. At one point he read out the dictionary definition for the word “gay”. He also accused the LGBTI community of bullying Christians. Katter’s electorate, Kennedy, recorded a 53 percent “No” survey response.

The Liberal party’s Keith Pitt represents the Queensland electorate of Hinkler. 50.7 percent of that electorate voted “Yes”, but this wasn’t enough to convince him of the marriage equality bill’s merits. Pitt supposedly supports same sex marriage in theory (right), but was unhappy with the ins and outs of the legislation. After numerous ridiculous religious freedom amendments were voted down yesterday, he released a statement saying he couldn’t support the bill and would be voting against it.

To be fair to Liberal MP David Littleproud, his electorate of Maranoa voted 56 percent “No”. He’s from Queensland, and he publicly campaigned for a “No” result during the postal survey lead up. He is literally too boring and sad for me to write about any further.

The only non-Queenslander on the list! Victorian Liberal MP Russell Broadbent deserves a special mention because he literally voted against his electorate’s wishes. His seat of McMillan recorded a 63 percent “Yes” response in the survey, which is pretty high. He defended his “No” vote earlier in December with this statement, which I think we can all agree makes little sense:

“There's a lot of consternation in my community at the moment because, even though the vote for same-sex marriage in my electorate was 61 percent and about 40 percent voted no, I, their federal member, will be voting no in this debate. I represent all the people in my electorate. There's a lot of fear going on in my electorate and across Australia about our changing community…”

Honorable mentions? The MPs who abstained from taking part in one of Australia’s most historic legislative votes of all time. Their names won’t surprise you: Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Tony Abbott, Andrew Hastie, Michael Sukkar, Kevin Andrews, Scott Morrison, Alex Hawke, George Christensen and Rick Wilson. All Liberals, obviously.

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