Right: Federal MP Penny Wong, an openly gay Labor politician and Finance Minister, has made no secret of her wish to see her party's line on gay marriage change.
Further implications
It is clear that the issue of whether same-sex marriage should be legalised will not disappear from the Australian political scene.
The Gillard Labor government relies on the support of the Greens since the hung parliament that resulted from the August 2010 elections. This puts the Greens in a powerful position to continue to promote their policy of legalising same-sex marriage. When parliament resumes in 2011, members of the House of Representatives will be required to gauge their constituents' opinion on the issue.
A number of recent opinion polls have indicated that a clear majority of the electorate supports gay marriage. If the MPs' discussions within their electorates confirm this, it will be difficult for the Labor Party to continue to deny its members a conscience vote on the issue.
The issue has the capacity to be highly divisive for the Labor Party. There are a significant number of key members of the party who support gay marriage and appear to have only remained quiet on the issue in the name of maintaining an appearance of unity. This is obviously true of openly gay Finance Minister Penny Wong who in October, 2010, publicly expressed support for same-sex marriage and a change in the Party's policy. However, there are others within the Party who are vocally opposed.
In recognition of the strength of opinion within the Party on the issue Julia Gillard has moved the date of the Labor Party's national convention forward six months so that the policy position on the question can be resolved in 2011.
It appears likely that the result of that Party debate will be that the issue of whether to legalise same-sex marriage becomes a conscience vote for Labor MPS and Senators. It has been estimated that there are some twenty Labor MPs who would vote in favour of legalising same-sex marriage were they allowed a conscience vote. This would still be insufficient to see the proposal become law; however, it would put pressure on the Liberal Opposition to allow its members a conscience vote.