Conscience votes in Parliament are not free of partisan politicking. In fact there seem to be a lot of partisan political motives at play at the moment. John Armstrong says, for instance, that the PM's endorsement of a marriage law change is a calculated strategy: 'Wall's bill is a cost-free means of portraying National as a "modern" party. Key may have another motive - giving Colin Craig's Conservative Party some room to National's right to carve out a niche' - see: Key out to show Nats have another side. Not to be outdone in political gaming, Winston Peters is joining Colin Craig's call for a referendum and says NZ First MPs will either vote against or abstain on the bill -see: Lloyd Burr's NZ First will abstain in gay marriage vote.
Peters employs some Maggie Barry-like logic to justify avoiding having to vote on the bill. John Hartevelt reports his views: 'The public should be left to decide on the issue "rather than have people try to twist the public debate with their personal view," Peters said' - see: Peters calls for gay marriage referendum. Representative democracy cannot cope with such issues it seems. It's also worth pointing out that recent polls actually indicate a referendum would back change by almost two to one.
Yet, NZ First's abstention will have the major consequence of lowering the number needed for a majority - to pass, the 'yes' vote will only be 57 instead of 61, which various media straw polls indicate it is close to already - see Isaac Davison's Same-sex law vote - Peters' new plan. TV3 has had another go at pinning down MPs on how they will vote - watch Round two - What MPs think of gay marriage. Also, see the Herald's excellent visual chart of How MPs plan to vote on gay marriage.
Meanwhile the Family First website set up to oppose the bill is back online after being taken down by hackers, although the US band Train apparently doesn't want their song 'Marry Me' to remain linked to the site - see: Anti-gay marriage website recovers from attack. Family First's national director, Bob McCoskrie, is still able to put their viewpoint however - see: State has no authority to reinvent marriage.
Other important or interesting political items today include: