Celebrate the fifth anniversaries of Australia’s first gay and lesbian legally married couples with a look back down their long road to marriage equality. From the 2004 “heterosexuals only” amendment to the Marriage Act to the 2017 postal survey on the issue and, finally, the legalization of same-gender marriages, Sydney correspondent Barry McKay covered the key developments. Included are former Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull; Senators Penny Wong, Sarah Hanson-Young, George Brandis and Dean Smith; MPs Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek; former High Court Justice Michael Kirby; journalists Karl Stevanovic and David Koch; right wing activist Lyle Shelton ; LGBTQ+ activists Jo Ball, Tiernan Brady and Alex Greenwich; entertainer Magda Szubanski and swimmer Ian Thorpe.
All this on the January 1, 2024 edition of This Way Out!
NewsWrap will return next week.
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Complete Program Summary
for the week of January 1, 2024
Australia’s 5th Marriage Equality Anniversary
Hosted this week by Greg Gordon and produced with Lucia Chappelle
[“NewsWrap” returns next week.]
Feature: Australia’s first gay and lesbian legally married couples are celebrating their fifth anniversaries in January 2024. Of course, the march down the politically fraught aisle was long and hard. The conservative agenda of Prime Minister John Howard’s Liberal Party saw making the civil institution explicitly heterosexual as a priority, and passed an amendment to the Marriage Act in 2004. Over the next thirteen years, 22 attempts to overturn that law in Parliament failed, while public support for marriage equality grew. Still, the administration of then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull opted for a non-compulsory, non-binding mail-in postal vote on the issue.
The turning point came in August of 2017. That’s when This Way Out Sydney correspondent BARRY McKAY picks up the story (with comments by former Prime Ministers Scott Morrison and Malcolm Turnbull; Senators Penny Wong, Sarah Hanson-Young, George Brandis and Dean Smith; MPs Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek; former High Court Justice Michael Kirby; journalists Karl Stevanovic and David Koch; right wing activist Lyle Shelton; LGBTQ+ activists Jo Ball, Tiernan Brady and Alex Greenwich; entertainer Magda Szubanski and swimmer Ian Thorpe) a mid-September 2017 NewsWrap report by MICHELE YEATER and MICHAEL LEBEAU; a TWO ID by Sydney Lord Mayor CLOVER MOORE; and featuring music from “Married” by RON RIFKIN, “Mr. Postman” by THE CARPENTERS, “Return to Sender” by ELVIS PRESLEY, “Same Love” by MACKLEMORE with MARY LAMBERT, “It’s Looking Good” by THE RUTLES, “I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do” by ABBA, “Love Is In The Air” by JOHN PAUL YOUNG, “Equal Love” by JADE LEONARD feat. DOLLY DIAMOND and LUKE GALLAGHER, and “Marry Me Right Now, Baby” by THE SYDNEY GAY & LESBIAN CHOIR).