As for Abbott he needs to be expelled from politics altogether. To think he is being paid to openly and arrogantly ignore the will of his constituents is just mind blowing.

Labor brought in a conscience vote for its MP’s at the end of 2011, six years ago, even though PM Gillard just wanted to leave the issue alone. As recently as a month ago Malcolm Turnbull was declaring that unless 50% plus 1 returned a Yes result in the survey the issue would not progress in this Parliament because the Liberals would continue to nobble their pro-marriage-equality MPs and Senators into not voting their conscience.

Labor leader Bill Shorten did state in a thought bubble to a Christian group that he was open to a plebiscite in 2013, then he met with dozens of gay Australians and changed his mind on that issue well before the Libs made it their election policy out of concern about what a No campaign would look like. Turnbull and the Libs pushed ahead despite fully knowing what a No campaign would look like (many of them were driving the No campaign).

Labor MPs like Tony Burke promised to vote Yes at the time of the last election irrespective of the survey, and in the knowledge their constituents would vote No. Liberal MPs like Tony Abbott said they’d honour the survey but abstained from voting despite their electorate overwhelmingly returning a Yes.

Labor has been far from perfect, but still much much better than the Liberals.

So that’s the comparison. It’s embarrassing for the Liberals. It’s extremely offensive of the PM to declare that opposing the plebiscite or survey was “playing politics” because the opposite was true – the survey was a political excuse to play with the lives of vulnerable young gay Australians.