It Sucks, But Turnbull's Legacy Will Be Marriage Equality

If the postal survey seems like a gigantic mess for almost everyone, it's because it is. Well, for everyone except Malcolm Turnbull. Even as the guy seems trapped between a rock of conservatives and a hard place of progressives, he may actually pull a win out of this. Not for equality, mind you, but for himself. Because, like it or not, Turnbull is very likely to wind up the hero in this situation, in a very quiet and devious way that basically involves him doing nothing.

To get an idea of how, we'll need to go back to the start.

Before his sudden and manifestly destined ascendency to the top, Australia had some idea of what Malcolm Turnbull stood for: He was the country's most vocal advocate for a republic, he was committed to "effective action on climate change," and he marched with conspicuous pride in Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. But since becoming Prime Minister, his passions have waned. He's become the robo-call version of himself.

This was inevitable. To appease the right wing of his right wing party who permit him to remain leader, he's had to tamp down all the qualities that made him seem like a passable candidate. Conservatives don't believe he's a real conservative, and progressives—horrified by how easily he sold out—have lost any patience they may have had with him.

Back when an actual marriage equality plebiscite was on the cards, Liberal Senator Dean Smith described it as a "tool for delay." Of course, the plebiscite fell through, but if there's one thing the LNP is not short on, it's tools. Determined to maintain the appearance of giving voters their say, the government pushed for an expensive and non-binding postal survey.

"Strong leaders carry out their promises," Turnbull told reporters in August. "Weak leaders break them. I'm a strong leader." As is widely known, one of the hallmarks of a strong leader is the need to constantly remind people that you're a strong leader. Malcolm trying to frame this whole mess as noble oath keeping is exactly as convincing as someone telling me my NBN is fast.

Marriage equality is clearly an absolute inevitability, yet the Prime Minister has chosen to get us there using the most circuitous, unnecessary route possible. It won't stop us from reaching our destination, but like a sadistic version of Google Maps—or just Apple Maps in its current form—it's a course that will ensure we use 10 times more fuel than we need to, and go through a large number of unnecessary tollways and dangerous roads that will leave us all battered and traumatised and wondering if there was a simpler way.

The "No" campaign is still hoping to pull a win out of this, and they're confident they can. Between the rise of Trump and the passing of Brexit, they're confident the tide is flowing their way. It's a campaign predicated entirely on lies, slippery slope hypotheticals, and the belief that no one under the age of 30 knows how to work an envelope.

So what is Turnbull—vocal "Yes" advocate Turnbull—doing to help the cause? Not much. In August, he said he would not be playing a prominent role in the "Yes" campaign. "I have many other calls to my time," he said, with the conviction of someone explaining why they hadn't watched that 30-second video you sent them.

These other calls to his time have included taking a walk up Black Mountain, speaking out against the vandalism of statues, visiting a basketball stadium, and attending an AFL game.

Of course "campaigning" is a nebulous thing. It's not a full time job unless you want it to be. You can do as much or as little of it as you like. He can have his staff write a social media post every day in favour of same-sex marriage. He can give a speech once a week to a sympathetic or unsympathetic group. And so far, he's given one speech.

Given all that, how can he possibly come out as the marriage equality winner?

When Leigh Sales asked him two weeks ago how he could possibly not have a signature achievement after two years in office, he said something about school funding and the Building and Construction Commission.

This mealy-mouthed reply was cannier than it looked. He knows that Kevin Rudd will be remembered for saying Sorry, that Julia Gillard will be remembered for the misogyny speech, that Tony Abbott will be remembered for eating an onion in red speedos as he hoisted another gilded honorarium onto a foreign nonagenarian royal.

Turnbull knows full well that leaders are remembered for one defining moment, and he has kept his powder extremely dry. When Sales said he had no signature achievement, a flicker behind his eyes told us this was a deliberate move, and not an oversight.

Should the "Yes" vote win out, and should marriage equality become a reality, and should this all happen on his watch, then the rousing speech that Turnbull gives in Parliament when the law finally passes will be his legacy.

With every passing year, we will forget the details. The evasiveness and hurt of the "respectful debate" will drift into the background; not for the people who experienced it, of course, but for those in newsrooms who edit highlights packages. The unusual process by which all this has happened will slowly cascade down the history page until it reaches the footnotes. The detail will be washed away, and those in the future who skim over history's topic sentences will come across the following phrase: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Wins Marriage Equality.

The party that's spent the past five years obsessed with stopping the boats now has a PM consumed with not rocking them. Buffeted by the whims of those around him, Malcolm—a man for whom being Prime Minister is less important than having been Prime Minister—has been a feckless, ineffectual figurehead leading from the rear. But events are unfolding in a way to deliver him the only win he really cares about, and although it's one whose effects may not be felt until long after he's left office, he's very aware that simply sitting in the passenger seat will get him exactly where he needs to go.

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