The leader of Australia’s campaign for marriage equality will visit Bendigo on Monday, with the central Victorian city hosting the final ‘yes’ event before the federal government’s postal survey closes.
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Tiernan Brady will appear at the Brougham Arms on Monday night, just hours before the Australian Bureau of Statistics stops accepting survey forms.
The campaigner was brought in to head up Australia’s marriage equality push after he successfully lobbied for change in his native Ireland.
In 2015, that country became the first to endorse same-sex marriage by a popular vote.
Just over 60 per cent of eligible citizens voted in the poll, a figure dwarfed by Australia’s turnout, which already sits at 77 per cent.
Another difference between the two marriage polls was the role of community campaigns, including Bendigo Says Yes, Mr Brady said.
Because the Australian continent was so vast, campaign heads could not visit every corner, he said. That left individual communities to wage their own push for equality.
“At home, I can drive across the island and be home for dinner – you can't do that in Australia,” he said.
“In reality, this is a national campaign, but hundreds of [communities] have stood up and told their own stories.
“That’s because it's a campaign about someone who lives on our street.”
Where to next?
If the survey returned a result in favour of marriage equality, Mr Brady said the campaign’s attention would again focus on Canberra, telling MPs it was “time to do their job”.
”If you're going to spend $150 million to $200 million on a process, and the people give you an answer, you need to act on it,” he said.
“That's going to be our message straight out of the traps on November 15.”
The campaign head was confident about the survey returning a majority of ‘yes’ votes but urged supporters not to become complacent.
“The only thing you can be 100 per cent sure of is we're all going to have top wake up and share the same country, share the same town the next day,” he said.
That is why his team had a contingency plan; in the case of a ‘no’ result, the first priority would be taking care of a wounded LGBTI community.
“It will a terrible moment for a lot of people, a moment people feel rejected by the community and by the people they love,” he said.
But an unfavourable result would not deter them from pursuing marriage equality, Mr Brady said.
“Nobody walks away from wanting to be equal. That journey will continue, no matter what.”
Similarly, a ‘yes’ vote would not mean all discrimination against same-sex attracted people suddenly ceased.
“The real change is when someone feels like a full member of the community they’re from,” he said.
Changing attitudes
Much of the fear surround marriage equality present before the Ireland referendum had dissipated in the two years since, Mr Brady said, pointing to polls which show a growing acceptance same-sex marriage.
He said many people who voted against the motion did so because the concept was new at the time.
“They saw this as different and they had genuine questions,” Mr Brady said.
“But this is a change that comes at no cost to anyone and all that happened was … it made the community a bit happier.
"It's [a decision] we look back on with genuine pride.”
Timing was one more crucial difference between the Australian Irish votes.
Mr Brady pointed to the emergence of a “rougher, more disrespectful” fringe element in the two years between the polls that saw debate descend into aggressive and personal jibes. It was a shame, he said.
"Most were respectful and engaging on both sides,” he said.
“But on the fringe, the volume's just got turned up a bit the last two years.”
Bendigo Says Yes event The Last Hurrah, featuring Tiernan Brady, begins Monday, 6pm, at the Brougham Arms.