Culture

11-Year-Old Expertly Unpacks Marriage Equality Plebiscite, While Coalition MPs Vow To Ignore Results Either Way

She's a testament to the child-raising abilities of same-sex couples.

by Hannah Hawkins  29 January 2016

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Isabella Mills is just 11 years old, but she’s being hailed as having more common sense and compassion than any of the fully-grown adults running the country right now. Isabella has been raised by her two Mums, who are in a same-sex relationship, and on Channel 10’s The Project last night she completely tore down Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s same-sex marriage plebiscite like a tiny prodigious mastermind.

After addressing Turnbull and introducing herself, Isabella got straight into telling him on national television why his $160 million idea is stupid and pointless. “I am struggling to see a point in the plebiscite that you are holding in 2017,” she said. “It is a complete waste of time, money, and will most certainly fracture some of the positive views that people have about you. That 160 million dollars that you are willing to waste on a pointless plebiscite is totally unnecessary.

“I mean, the public has already expressed their views and made it quite clear that they want same-sex marriage for Australia. I may not be the Prime Minister, but even I know that Australian could use that money elsewhere. If an 11-year-old girl can see that, why can’t you?

“All the homeless people you walk past on the streets treasure the few pennies they possess while you are ready to throw millions of dollars right down the drain. And you say you want to help our community. You might be fooling the rest of the country but you are not fooling me.”

After Isabella’s piece, the panel crossed to discuss the topic with Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, giving viewers cognitive whiplash with his starkly contrasting views. Bernardi, who is so aggressively conservative he literally wrote a book called The Conservative Revolution, reiterated his opposition to marriage equality, but added, weirdly sensibly, that same-sex marriage should be left up to the parliament.

“No Australian government and no representative has ever been bound by a plebiscite,” he said. “If you want to bind a government, you then should go through the process for a referendum. Which is where I have said in the past, if a majority of people in a majority of states vote in favour of enshrining something in our constitution, then of course parliament is bound by that.”

Indeed, his Coalition colleagues — including recently dumped cabinet minister and Dolce and Gabanna disciple Eric Abetz — have contradicted Turnbull, saying openly they won’t be bound by the results of a plebiscite, even if it is overwhelmingly in favour of marriage equality.

The show’s segment coincides with media reports of the not-at-all-surprising, grossly backwards content of former prime minister Tony Abbott’s speech to a far-right Christian group in the US. In the top left corner of The Age this morning, the headline “Gay marriage leads to ‘the erosion of family'” stamped out any remaining warm feelings people might have had after listening to a child prodigy talk about the importance of human rights.

In his talk to the Alliance Defending Freedom, Abbott — whose own gay sister publicly rebuked him — said allowing same-sex couples to marry contributes to “the erosion of family”, and urged policy makers to “pass on the institution of marriage undamaged to future generations”. “We shouldn’t try to change something without understanding it, without grasping why it is that one man and one woman open to children until just a very few years ago has always been considered the essence of marriage and the heart of family,” he said.

“We can’t shirk our responsibilities to the future, but let’s also respect and appreciate values and institutions that have stood the test of time and pass them on, undamaged, when that’s best. That’s a goal we should all be able to share.”

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