In the coming week, Australia will spend $122 million on conducting a voluntary, non-binding survey regarding the legalisation of same-sex marriage. A 'yes' majority will not legalise same-sex marriage, but simply mean that the issue is considered in parliamentary debate and the government might choose to have a vote on it. If the 'no' vote wins, they will allow no debate nor vote on same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage may only be legalised if 'yes' wins, AND the government subsequently chooses to vote, AND they allow a conscience vote.

Context: Internal party politics in the conservative party. While same-sex marriage would easily be legalised by holding a free vote in Parliament (as it has the support of the majority of Parliamentarians - including the Prime Minister, incidentally), the conservative party is fettered by their right-wing faction, which is not allowing a vote to take place.

Those agreeing with the survey say:
- It's more democratic to do it this way
- It's an election promise so they must do it

Those disagreeing with the survey being conducted say:
- It is a waste of millions of dollars. We already know Australian opinions on the issue: in every poll in the last few years, support for legalisation has been between 60% - 70%. In no electorate in the country does opposition rise above 50% (link)
- 'Tyranny of the majority': The majority should not be deciding issues of minority rights.
- It is against the principles of representative democracy that underlie our system. We should not send issues to the polls unless necessary- especially those that do not affect a large amount of people - and doing so sets a bad precedent for the future.
- The advertising by the 'no' side has included vilification of homosexual people generally.
- The process to get the survey going involved the Executive sidestepping and overruling the Parliament (which voted against it twice) with an obscure provision. This is an overreach of power by the Executive and yet more weakening of the democratically-elected Legislature.

Nb: I promise I won't argue against you if you pick 'yes' lol, I've done that on the last few polls I made and it's sort of poor form.

Potentially my favourite thing (not) to come out of this debacle is former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's wise words of much wisdom explaining link

"And I say to you, if you don’t like same-sex marriage, vote no. If you’re worried about religious freedom, and freedom of speech, vote no. If you don’t like political correctness, vote no – because voting no will help to stop political correctness in its tracks."

I'm glad we had such an intelligent, perceptive specimen leading our country for 2 years.

And there you have it: you can dismiss any issue, no matter how irrelevant, by invoking the 'political correctness' menace. Welcome to 2017.