National ALP conference, Minority Government and the prospects for Same Sex Marriage

There are several matters that came out at this conference of the ALP.

The most important of which (or considered largely to be by the public)  is the same sex marriage reforms. At the conference, it was voted positively that next year a bill will possibly enter parliament in order to legalise same sex union.

The issue had been simmering for quite some time, and pressure was on the Prime Minister Julia Gillard to take some action on the matter, considering that the smallest state in Australia, as you all know, has introduce a Same Sex Marriage bill into parliament for debate.

However, the vote had 10 labour caucus members against the decision, which will make it difficult for the bill to firstly pass the House of Representatives, and then the Senate where the balance of power lies with the Australian Greens.

To see the bill progressing through parliament and the negotiations that will not be shown in question time on either ABC or ABC 24 will definitely be intriguing, largely because the Prime Minister is a best known as one of the best negotiators of her time. The second point to make the passage of this bill through the legislature more interesting is that, as we are all very aware of, Australia currently has a minority government.

This essentially means that the government does not have enough seats to form an absolute majority, as a result, it has skyrocketed five independents; Andrew Wilkie, Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott, Tony Crooke, and Tony Windsor from mere members of parliament, to integral to whom forms government.

With members of the labor part disagreeing, both negotiation with independents and within her own party, it seems that Ms Gillard will have an interesting new year.