The Turnbull government’s fraught internal deliberations about marriage equality are exhibiting a tedious element of wash, rinse, repeat.
To have any hope of decoding all the developments, we have to part ways, briefly, with the designated Canberra sport of clash of clans, or battle of the blowhards, and work methodically through what’s going on.
Despite the enervating overtone of Groundhog Day, the Liberals are now moving towards a genuine crunch point on this issue.
Parliament resumes next week after the winter recess and MPs aiming to change the government’s plebiscite policy want to trigger a party room discussion.
There is a lot of focus on a private members bill coming on for debate on the floor of the House or the Senate – and we’ll get to that shortly – but first we need to take a breath, and identify the broader objective.
MPs who want the Liberal party to move to a free vote position right now, before the federal next election, would prefer to achieve that shift through a full and frank party room debate rather than through a targeted outbreak of parliamentary theatrics.
The first objective in all of the positioning over recent months has been to try to engineer a change of position in the party room.
Current indications suggest that broader objective has hit several speed bumps. Malcolm Turnbull is giving public assurances the plebiscite remains government policy. Queenslanders have been working over their party colleagues trying to drum up internal support for a postal plebiscite. The Nationals are also making it clear that dumping the plebiscite before the next election would be a breach of the Coalition agreement.
So if that core objective, (changing the Liberal party policy, and right now), becomes too much to hope for, then we wash up inevitably at the next procedural step, which is whether or not a bill proceeds to the floor of the parliament.
Two more quick caveats before we get to private member’s bills, and any burst of parliamentary theatrics.
The government might first run the original plebiscite proposal back through the parliament just to remind the public it has proceeded with its election commitment and the numbers aren’t there.
Cabinet might also be beavering away on a brilliant fix which heads all the internal unpleasantness off at the pass. Somehow.
Now we’ve finally reached the parliament. The numbers are certainly there to bring on a marriage bill for debate if a handful of Liberals cross the floor.
Turnbull has given his rebel group of MPs public license to do just that over the past 48 hours, with a big public wink about the importance of Liberal party tradition (read the free vote tradition).
The prime minister has said, in essence, go for your life, while standing stoically behind the protective shield of the plebiscite being government policy.
I’ve got absolutely no doubt the numbers are there to bring on the parliamentary debate in theory, but whether the numbers are there in practice is ultimately down to the group of Liberal MPs and their collective stomach for ruckus – and a level-headed calculation about whether the sortie delivers the desired result, which is a change in the law.
Sadly for them, it’s not just a stomach for ruckus, it’s an appetite for risk.
What we’ve just worked through carefully in this column is a list of rational motives and outcomes.
What that process doesn’t take into account is irrational motives and outcomes, and this being #auspol, it’s wise to also throw those in the mix.
Same-sex marriage is a seriously incendiary debate inside the government, and a number of key protagonists are locked in fights for survival.
Tony Abbott is fighting to survive and prosper on the right. Peter Dutton will fight to hold his seat at the next federal election. MPs in marginal seats feel the lethal pull of negative opinion polls. Barnaby Joyce is fed up with the Liberals and their intrigues and wants this whole issue to go away, and if it won’t go away, he’d like the prime minister to be able to control his own people.
And Malcolm Turnbull? Where will this fight take the prime minister?
Some colleagues think Turnbull is intent on running dead and allowing members of his (moderate) tribe to deliver a result that he would likely to be personally happy with – that is, a change in the law.
That is certainly one way to prosecute a fight in politics, particularly one as fraught and potentially explosive as this one. But if that’s the strategy, it won’t be without collateral damage.
Conservatives (restive now), will be absolutely baying for blood. It will be seen as either too tricky by half, or spun viciously as a prime minister who cannot contain his own foot soldiers.
Turnbull of course has other options than just putting the prime ministerial car in neutral and rolling down the hill, steering around the growling and prowling wildlife, and hoping the brakes work by the time he’s reached the bottom.
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