Depending upon the outcome of this weekend's ALP National Conference, it appears the Commonwealth Parliament will vote on same sex marriage next year using the conscience vote method. Julia Gillard is recommending this approach, while reiterating her personal opposition.
Let's be clear. Conscience votes — votes free from party discipline — are primarily an act of strategy by leaders, not recognition of parliamentary conscience. They do, though, inject humanity into the proceedings of Parliament.
There has been on average less than one a year in the Commonwealth and each state parliament over the past 50 years. Such votes are often closely associated with the moral and ethical issues that follow any departure from traditional Christian morality. Same-sex marriage is typical.
One of the earliest conscience votes in the 1950s concerned marriage and divorce law reform, but over several decades at both the state and Commonwealth level abortion law reform was the prime example of parliamentary legislation by conscience vote.
During the Howard years the votes concerned euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, the RU-486 'abortion drug' and cloning.
Conscience votes are usually offered in tandem by the government and opposition parties. To not do so, as Tony Abbott now proposes, is against the spirit of the exercise. Ultimately he will not be able to resist pressure to allow Coalition members a conscience vote.
Such votes are often accompanied by two other distinguishing features, private members bills and the participation of powerful, non-government lobby groups, as in this case.
The parties stand back, as Gillard is doing, because they don't know how to handle such issues, when opposition is rooted in deeply-held religious traditions and big church organisations. Gillard has already promised the Australian Christian Lobby that Labor will not change its policy during this term.
The object of allowing a conscience vote is to satisfy MPs firmly opposed to such changes and thereby to avoid MPs crossing the floor and perhaps splitting the party. This applies to both sides of politics, but especially Labor because of its collectivist, majority-rules tradition. The individualist Liberal tradition prides itself on being more sympathetic to the individual consciences of its parliamentarians.
One criticism of conscience votes is that, if they are such worthwhile exercises in freedom of speech, they should be applied more widely to issues of public morality, such as international relations. But that mistakes the whole point of the exercise. Party leaders don't want to lose control.
The stronger criticism is