The 2011 Australian Labor Party National Conference was the 46th triennial National Conference of the Australian Labor Party. It was held on 3 December 2011 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre at Darling Harbour, New South Wales.
On 3 December 2011, the party voted in favour of recognising same-sex marriage in Australia. [1] Party leader and Prime Minister Julia Gillard opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriage, but endorsed bringing the issue to a vote. Previously, over 140,000 Australian citizens signed a petition to Gillard urging her to reconsider her opposition. At the same time, openly lesbian Finance Minister Senator Penny Wong vocally endorsed same-sex marriage becoming Labor policy.
The party, however, also formally endorsed a motion, which Gillard supported, to allow Labor members of parliament a conscience vote on the issue, on a vote of 208 to 184. [2]
The party's endorsement of same-sex marriage was also supported outside of Australia. Boris Dittrich, current LGBTI Program Director for Human Rights Watch and former member of the Tweede Kamer in the Netherlands (Dittrich voted in favour of the Netherlands becoming the first modern nation to legalise same-sex marriage in 2001), sent an open letter to the Labor Party urging delegates to endorse same-sex marriage. [3]
On 19 September 2012, a private members' bill by Labor MP Stephen Jones to legislate same-sex marriage was defeated 98-42 in the Australian House of Representatives. 26 of the 73 Labor MPs voted against the measure. [4] Legalisation would not come until January 2018, after the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey.
The Union for Progressive Judaism, the largest denomination of Jewish rabbis in Australia, welcomed the conference vote. [5]
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Julia Eileen Gillard is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, holding office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). She previously served as the 13th deputy prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010, under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. She is the first and only female to hold either office in Australian history.
Anthony Norman Albanese is an Australian politician serving as the 31st and current prime minister of Australia since 2022. He has been leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 2019 and the member of parliament (MP) for Grayndler since 1996. Albanese previously served as the 15th deputy prime minister under the second Kevin Rudd government in 2013, and held various other ministerial positions in the governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from 2007 to 2013.
Tanya Joan Plibersek is an Australian politician who served as Deputy Leader of the Labor Party and Deputy Leader of the Opposition from 2013 to 2019. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sydney since 1998. A member of the Labor Party, Plibersek served as a Cabinet Minister in the Rudd, Gillard and Albanese governments. She is currently the Minister for the Environment and Water in the Albanese ministry since 2022, having previously served as the Shadow Minister for Education and Shadow Minister for Women between 2019 and 2022.
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Joseph de Bruyn, is an Australian trade union official. He is National President of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) and a member of the National Executive of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
The Marriage Act 1961(Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia which regulates marriage in Australia. Since its passage in 1961, it has been amended on numerous occasions and applies uniformly throughout Australia (including its external territories); and any law made by a state or territory inconsistent with the Act is invalid. The Act was made pursuant to power granted to the federal parliament under s.51(xxi) of the Australian Constitution. Although the federal parliament was given the power to pass laws about marriage at federation in 1901, it did not use this power until the adoption of the Act, while before 1961, each Australian state and territory had its own marriage laws.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Australia have advanced over the latter half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century to make Australia one of the most LGBT-accepting countries in the world, with opinion polls and the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey indicating widespread popular support for same-sex marriage. A 2013 Pew Research poll found that 79% of Australians agreed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, making it the fifth-most supportive country surveyed in the world. With its long history of LGBT activism and annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras festival, Sydney has been named one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world.
Same-sex marriage in Australia has been legal since 9 December 2017. Legislation to allow same-sex marriage, the Marriage Amendment Act 2017, passed the Australian Parliament on 7 December 2017 and received royal assent from the Governor-General the following day. The law came into effect on 9 December, immediately recognising overseas same-sex marriages. The first same-sex wedding under Australian law was held on 15 December 2017. The passage of the law followed a voluntary postal survey of all Australians, in which 61.6% of respondents supported legalisation of same-sex marriage.
Christopher Patrick Hayes is a former Australian Labor Party politician who served as the member of parliament for Werriwa from 2005 to 2010 and then as the member for Fowler from 2010 to 2022, when he retired from politics.
Same-sex marriage is not legal in Israel. The government has registered same-sex marriages performed abroad for some purposes since 2006. However, marriages performed in Israel are only available from one of the 15 religious marriage courts recognized by the state, none of which permit same-sex marriage under their respective auspices. Consequently, Israelis who desire to have their same-sex marriage recognized by the government must first marry outside Israel, in a jurisdiction where such marriages are legal, and then register upon returning home.
Mark Victor Arbib is an Australian former Labor Party politician and trade unionist, who was an Australian Senator for New South Wales from 2008 to 2012.
Equal Love is an Australian-wide campaign initiated by the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby in an attempt to win gay and lesbian couples marriage rights in the country. The campaign involves a range of community, union, student and activist organisations whose aim is to influence public and government attitudes towards LGBT couples through education and direct action.
Australian Marriage Equality (AME) was an advocacy group driven by volunteers who came together to pursue the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Australia. AME partnered with a diverse range of organisations and supporters across the country to end the exclusion of same-sex LGBTIQ couples from marriage in Australia. It was the pre-eminent group campaigning for same-sex marriage in Australia.
The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as Prime Minister by the Governor-General of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.
A leadership spill in the Australian Labor Party, the party then forming the Government of Australia, took place on 26 June 2013 at 7:00pm AEST. Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a ballot for Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labor Party live on Sky News Australia at 4:00pm, following persistent leadership tensions. She stated that she would retire from politics if she lost the vote, while calling on any would-be challengers to pledge to do the same if they lost. In a press conference held shortly after Gillard's announcement, backbencher and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that he would challenge Gillard, whilst also pledging to step down if he did not win the vote. At the ALP caucus meeting, Rudd was elected Leader of the Labor Party, with the caucus voting 57–45 in his favour.
The second Rudd government was the federal executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of the Australian Labor Party. It commenced on 27 June 2013 and ceased on 18 September 2013. Rudd had previously served a term as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 and been replaced by his deputy Julia Gillard, following an internal party spill. Rudd regained the Labor Party leadership by successfully re-challenging Gillard in a June 2013 party spill. On 5 August, Rudd called an election for 7 September 2013, which resulted in the defeat of his government by the Liberal/National Coalition led by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
A referendum on banning same-sex marriage was held in Slovakia on 7 February 2015. Critics claimed the referendum was pushed by religious and conservative organisations, aiming to block gay couples from gaining more rights.
The Australian Labor Party National Conference is an internal body of the Australian Labor Party, one of the major political parties in Australia. It is the highest representative body of the party's state and territory branches. The National Conference takes place triennially, the most recent being the 48th conference held in Adelaide in 2018, and which was attended by 397 party delegates. Other recent Conferences were the 2011 National Conference held on 3 December 2011, and the 2015 National Conference held in Melbourne. The next National Conference will take place in March 2021.
The history of same-sex marriage in Australia includes its express prohibition by the Howard government in 2004 and its eventual legalisation by the Parliament in December 2017. Although a same-sex marriage law was passed by the Australian Capital Territory in 2013, it was struck down by the High Court on the basis of inconsistency with federal law. The Court's decision closed the possibility of concurrent state or territory laws that would allow same-sex marriage where federal law did not. A law legalising same-sex marriage passed the Parliament on 7 December 2017 and received royal assent the following day.