Liberal party room showdown: The selfish marriage deal to avert an ugly divorce – The Sydney Morning Herald

A compromise plan to resolve the Coalition's internal split over marriage reform is the most likely outcome from Monday's special policy meeting. After all, the alternative could lead to the ugliest divorce in the Liberal Party's history.

Right now, the twin risks of a one-seat majority and entrenched unpopularity have focused Coalition minds, prompting MPs to rethink a looming bare-knuckle political fight with existential implications.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calls an emergency meeting of the Liberal Party to debate same-sex marriage.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and other Liberal MPs have taken aim at the media as talk continues about a same sex marriage plebiscite.

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Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calls an emergency meeting of the Liberal Party to debate same-sex marriage.

As they say in Canberra, in the race of politics, always back the horse called self-interest - at least you know it's trying.

Of course, nobody can say for sure because this argument is in the hands of the Liberal party room.

Experience teaches that once a dispute disappears into that opaque forum, inflammatory things can be said, tempers can fray, unlikely decisions can be taken. Or discerned.

Outcomes range from the clever to the perverse.

Ironically, the deeply problematic plebiscite is a telling recent example of the latter, operating as an immediate electoral negative, and leading inexorably to the Prime Minister's current exquisite dilemma.

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Transparently, the plebiscite was a delaying tactic that arose from the creative post party room interpretation by the then prime minister Tony Abbott - whose own leadership had sprung from another notoriously weird meeting in 2009.

So, with those caveats, what shape would a compromise take? The best bet is that it would contain three elements, none of which contemplates a voluntary postal ballot - an idea too silly for words.

Stage one would be another attempt to drive the plebiscite bill through the Senate.

Assuming that fails given that the numbers upstairs have not moved, the other elements would kick in: reform advocates would accept that the plebiscite remains Coalition policy for the balance of this term. Reformers would concede this because conservatives would agree to a shelf-life, allowing the government to retire the plebiscite boondoggle and take the promise of a free parliamentary vote to the next election.

For conservatives, it buys another delay of up to 2 years, which is always their goal. For reformers, it buys the clear promise of a parliamentary conscience vote. And for Turnbull? Peace.

Plus, he resolves a diabolical election problem allowing him to match Labor's timetable for delivering marriage equality via a swift parliamentary route.

Finally Turnbull would have a policy he could live with.

It's a win-win-lose. The latter group, obviously, being LGBTI couples denied the right of marriage. Again.

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Liberal party room showdown: The selfish marriage deal to avert an ugly divorce - The Sydney Morning Herald