Australia: People must be prevented from discussing homosexual marriage, apparently

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has urged the Federal Government to abandon plans for a public poll on same-sex marriage.

Mr Andrews has written to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull urging him not to hold a plebiscite on legalising marriage for same-sex couples.

In the letter, Mr Andrews argued the plebiscite would legitimise hateful debate about LGBTIQ issues. He said there was no public poll before the Marriage Act was changed to specify that marriage was a union between a man and a woman. "In 2004 the law was changed to be fundamentally unequal, to be discriminatory, to be unfair, without a national plebiscite," Mr Andrews said.

He said the $160 million plebiscite would be wasteful. "But the cost is not best measured in numbers," Mr Andrews said. "The cost is best measured in the pain, the anguish, the sense of inequality, the sense of not being treated fairly.  "This will be a harmful, spiteful debate — it will give legitimacy to hurtful views, views that are essentially bigoted."

The Premier said he did not want to speculate about what would happen if the plebiscite occurred, and returned a vote against legalising same-sex marriage. But he would not say whether Victoria would go its own way in introducing marriage equality laws.

"I haven't ruled that out," Mr Andrews said. "We have a proud history in this state of changing the law and trying to be the progressive capital of our nation and that's not going to change."

Last month, Mr Turnbull said he was confident Australians had the maturity to have a respectful discussion about the issue.

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