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The Federal Government and Opposition are working together to quickly introduce new laws to protect people from vilification and misleading and deceptive conduct during the same-sex marriage campaign.
On Thursday, the High Court ruled to dismiss challenges to the Federal Government's same-sex marriage postal survey, clearing the way for it to go ahead.
The fresh legislation is needed because the usual laws covering elections do not apply to the survey.
Key dates in SSM postal survey:
August 24 — the final day to register with the AEC if you want to take part in the survey- September 12 — survey forms start being sent out
- September 25 — all forms are expected to have been sent
- October 27 — forms are strongly encouraged to be returned by this date
- November 7 — the final deadline to return surveys
- November 15 — results are released at 11:30am
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said the Parliament as a whole needed to send a message that vilification would not be accepted as part of the debate.
"We understand the urgency of this. Now the survey is well and truly on we want this campaign on both sides of the debate to be conducted with grace and kindness," he said.
"And we agree with the Government that there needs to be some safeguard legislation put in place."
As the acting Special Minister of State, senator Mathias Cormann is overseeing the conduct of the postal survey for the Government.
He said he would be consulting interested MPs and interest groups about the draft bill over the next few days.
"To put forward suggestions about how we could add to, and complement, the existing legal safeguards that are already in place to ensure the process aligns as much as is practical with the framework that would normally apply in an election context," Senator Cormann said.
He pointed to provisions like the authorisation requirements in the Electoral Act which identify who is responsible for particular communications.
Senator Cormann said if consensus could be reached, his intention would be to get the legislation through the Parliament next week.
'It has to be a respectful debate'
But the Opposition does not think the Electoral Act is a good model for the new laws.
Mr Dreyfus said a postal survey was a "very different activity to a general election or a constitutional referendum".
He said he wanted any new laws to protect against hateful material, "because nothing in the Electoral Act deals with that".
"The misleading conduct provision only deals with misleading someone about the mechanics of voting," he said.
The Law Council of Australia wants the postal survey covered by laws similar to those that apply to the conduct of elections and plebiscites.
But its president, Fiona McLeod SC, acknowledged those new laws may be difficult to draft.
She said lawmakers would need to decide who should have oversight of the type of statements that were being made.
"Because people aren't seeking approval to make electoral statements as they would during the course of an election campaign, it will be necessary to roll out some laws specific to this postal survey," she said.
"They shouldn't impact overly on free speech, but protect people's sense of being safe and not having hateful remarks made about them.
"It has to be a respectful debate and we're very concerned that we get this right."
Topics: gays-and-lesbians, marriage, courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, federal-parliament, parliament, government-and-politics, australia
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