There you have it..
This will finally end Turnbulls leadership but will he manage to push this through?
Turnbull Government would deliver same-sex marriage, and grinned: “It might even be sooner than everyone thinks.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/op...e/news-story/70a2379eee43dc0a13395cfb3c3dcf1f
Andrew Bolt: Christopher Pyne drops Malcolm Turnbull’s plan for Liberals on same-sex marriage
CHRISTOPHER Pyne has let slip what seems Malcolm Turnbull’s final explosive plan for the Liberal Party he’s turned into Labor-lite.
The Defence Industry Minister last Friday tipped the Turnbull Government would deliver same-sex marriage, and grinned: “It might even be sooner than everyone thinks.”
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This suggests the Prime Minister is secretly plotting to break an election promise to hold a people’s vote to decide this divisive issue — or will be forced to it by the party’s dominant Left.
But Pyne’s boasting at a Sydney bar is likely to instead trigger a revolt from conservative MPs already furious that Turnbull has signed up the Liberals to Labor-style policies on global warming, school funding and debt.
Copying Labor’s position on same-sex marriage as well will be the final insult.
Pyne’s prediction could detonate an explosion that destroys the party and Turnbull’s leadership.
But Pyne, a key Turnbull loyalist, sounded excited on Friday when he addressed a reception of the “Black Hand” — Left-wing Liberal MPs and supporters — before the party’s federal council.
Shouting at Star Casino’s Cherry Bar loud enough to be heard outside, Pyne spoke as if the Liberal Left’s greatest enemy was not Labor but the Liberal Right, including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott.
To an audience including Attorney-General George Brandis and backbencher Trent Zimmerman, Pyne gloated that the party’s Left — called “moderates” by the media — had “waxed and waned” but the faction was now triumphant.
“Two years ago … Malcolm Turnbull was the communications minister and now he’s the Prime Minister.So I would say that our fortunes are pretty good at the moment. And most of your senior cabinet ministers, George Brandis, [Defence Minister] Marise Payne, yours truly — quite a few of us are very senior ministers in a Turnbull Government.
“Now there was a time when people said it wouldn’t happen, but George and I kept the faith. We voted for Malcolm Turnbull in every ballot he’s ever been in.”
Both Pyne and Brandis were senior ministers in Abbott’s government. So much for their professions of loyalty.
Up to that point of his speech, Pyne was laying bare the bloody rift between the Liberals’ two main factions, now openly warring with each other rather than Labor.
Then he went further, supporting a prediction I made last year — that Turnbull would not want to be sacked as Prime Minister without first bringing in same-sex marriage.
For that, he must get Parliament to vote for it, since the Senate won’t let him keep his promise to voters and conservative Liberals to let the public vote instead.
Turnbull has never ruled out a vote of politicians, and Pyne, his chief spear-thrower, gave every reason at the Cherry Bar to believe Turnbull will indeed break his promise — especially now his poll numbers are terminal and time on his leadership running out.
“There’s still a couple of things we’ve got to do to be able to prove that winning positions is all very well,” Pyne said.
“Friends, we are in the winner’s circle but we have to deliver a couple of things and one of those we’ve got to deliver before too long is marriage equality in this country.”
The crowd cheered, and Pyne added: “We’re going to get it. I think it might even be sooner than everyone thinks.
Pyne will argue he was just expressing a hope, not revealing a plan, but almost no conservative MP will believe him.
Of course Turnbull wants Parliament to legalise same-sex marriage. His entire post-politics reputation now relies on it.
If he gets dumped as Prime Minister tomorrow his name would be mud to both sides of politics.
To Labor, he would be the sellout who wimped it on every conviction he had, from the republic to the same-sex marriage.
To Liberals, he would be the loser who stabbed a winning Prime Minister and then trashed the Liberals’ principles and reputation by leaving us with record debt, record spending, record power prices, and higher taxes. And how many Labor policies has he now aped?
But if Turnbull achieves same-sex marriage he could at least quit as a lion of the Left, hero of a thousand dinner parties.
And he and Pyne would have the last laugh. Let those loathed conservatives clear up the rubble of what was once called the Liberal Party.
