There looks to be a fiscal issue with same-sex marriage which when highlighted previously, it’s got no air time in the serious regions where decisions are made.
I recall well when the Parliament discussed same-sex marriage. I did not concur with both - the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull or the then Leader of the Opposition Bill Shorten. Both stood in Parliament and said this Bill was only about to two people marrying. Full stop. Check out Hansard. The warnings that it would go much further fell on deaf ears.
Today there is a massive outcry by the quiet Australians that this has taken off to the many far flung areas of the nation including schools, business, education policy, transport, community, church ,,, need I go on.
What is the ‘BUT’
This is the ‘but’ - the entire governance of the Commonwealth, the fiscal determinations, the treasurer’s budgetary considerations, the entire educations program – pre school, primary, secondary, tertiary, university, post graduate … transport, military …. you name it - is inevitably associated with the next generation.
The current fiscal matters likewise look into the future. They must do. Any country that closes the ‘future door’ is doomed. There is no future in it. Even the Covid 19 Government financial focus is on the future.
Everything is geared to the future. The population debate is front and centre. Government’s policies focus on the future – where might new housing developments spring up - these require schools, transport, roads, infrastructure, supermarkets. The military likewise. White papers spell out such needs.
I could go on and on and on infinitim with real life illustrations of how the Government of the day’s focus fiscally is front and centre to the future.
Let’s get real
Obviously this is the central question - in my view two people who love each other with a passion now have a legal right to get married. I don’t think I have a right to say to Qantas CEO Allan Joyce he is not permitted to ‘marry’ his male love.
It seems to me to be a fiscal issue - there is something odd with anyone of that ilk taking any piece of the national fiscal cake when their sole endeavour is personal selfish passion.
If anything the nation ‘focuses on’ the future and that means children and many of them. Where there is no normal procreation future, Government money decisions …... in effect, it’s taking food out of the mouth of babes (as it were). If it’s fiscal, it’s a political issue.
Let this be clear. I am not speaking about male and female couples who for medical reasons cannot have children. That is beyond their ‘own decision’. Rather those who make a deliberate decision not to look to the nation’s fiscal future.
This may become the new political question.