Kevin Rudd pledges same-sex marriage bill in first 100 days if re-elected (original) (raw)

Kevin Rudd has used the first election debate to promise legislation on same-sex marriage within 100 days of re-election and Labor was poised with a social media campaign harking back to its famous 1972 "It's time" election slogan ready to back up the pledge.

Rudd said he supported legalising same-sex marriage "as a mark of decency to same-sex couples across the country who wish the same loving, caring relationship that, for example, I have had with Therese my wife now for the last 32 years, and for that to be formalised".

He promised Labor MPs would again have a conscience vote on the issue and he "appealed to Abbott to do the same because folk out there want this to happen".

Tony Abbott said he understood same-sex marriage was "a very important issue", acknowledging his gay sister, Christine Forster, who was in the National Press Club debate audience with her partner.

But he said the matter had been recently debated by the parliament and would not be a high priority for an incoming Coalition government. He said it would be up to the Coalition party room to decide whether Coalition MPs should get a conscience vote, if it ever came up in the future.

Same-sex marriage came up only in the final minutes of an hour-long encounter that was heavily dominated by the competing arguments on economic policy.

The leaders were fairly evenly matched – two of the voter reaction "worms" run by commercial television stations gave the debate to Rudd and one to Abbott, but many commentators thought the Coalition leader had come out narrowly ahead. The Guardian's own worm gave Rudd a comprehensive win.

Afterwards the Coalition complained that Rudd had flagrantly breached the rules set down for the encounter, which prohibited the leaders from bringing in pre-prepared notes.

"It's what we have come to expect from Kevin Rudd, the rules never apply to him. We want the national Press Club to review this and take this matter up," the Liberal federal director, Brian Loughnane, told Guardian Australia.

On climate change, Abbott refused to countenance emissions reductions beyond 5% by 2020, despite having signed on to the same higher targets as Labor under the same conditions for action by other countries.

He said he did not deal in "hypotheticals" and implied there was not a need to move further because fewer countries were meeting their emission reduction obligations with a carbon tax.

Rudd said Labor would honour Australia's international obligations and took a dig at Abbott's previous doubts about climate science.

"We will be doing a disservice to our kids and grandkids if we do not act … We never doubted the science, unlike some," he said. "What really frightens the hell out of me – to be frank – in my home state of Queensland is the effect on the Great Barrier Reef."

In the economic debate, Rudd's attack centred on the allegation that Abbott was favouring big corporations over families, who would lose the schoolkid bonus payments that the Coalition intends to scrap.

He said Abbott was offering "tax cuts that benefit very large corporations in the main, there's not a lot in it for families". Abbott said his company tax cuts were all about economic growth to protect people's jobs.

Rudd also went on the attack over the GST, repeatedly asking why it was included in the taxation review a Coalition government has promised. Abbott accused Rudd of running an "embarrassing scare campaign".

But after Rudd had again recited his plan to deal with an end to the mining investment boom by improving productivity, Abbott delivered his most cut-through attack line, saying Rudd had "said exactly the same thing in this debate six years ago" when he was facing off against former prime minister John Howard.

The Coalition finished the first week of the election campaign with a slightly increased lead in the big opinion polls, but Labor strategists remained confident they were within striking difference if everything went right for the next four weeks. On Sunday things went very wrong when two candidates were forced to stand aside – leaving Labor with only 24 hours to select new ones.

With Australians increasingly uncertain about the impact of a slowing economy, the economic debate dominated the whole first week and is also set to loom large in week two, with the release of the final pre-election budget forecasts on Tuesday.

Debates are seen as risky by political strategists, and particularly those with head-to-head formats are usually resisted by the frontrunners and demanded by the underdog who has less to lose. True to this pattern, Rudd has been demanding head-to-head contests on each television network, but Abbott wants any further debates to be in a "town-hall" style format.

The last time a debate was seen as having a real influence on an election outcome was when Paul Keating and John Hewson faced off in 1993. The "worm" has not always been a predictor of electoral success. It favoured Howard in 1996 and Rudd in 2007, both of whom won, but it also gave the 2004 debate to Mark Latham and the 1998 debate to Kim Beazley and they lost. In 2010 it gave Julia Gillard a decisive win in her debate against Abbott, but the actual election result was not nearly so clearcut.

Rudd was a long-time opponent of legalising gay marriage but publicly changed his position a few months ago, saying after a "difficult personal journey" he now believed the secular state should recognise same-sex unions while religious institutions should be allowed to determine their own position.

Labor's social media "It's time for marriage equality" campaign says Rudd is "standing with" all Australians who believe the time has come for the legal change.