Today’s the day for the High Court challenge
Tuesday, September 05, 2017
Today and tomorrow the High Court is hearing two challenges against the Australian marriage law postal survey.
I have previously said that the postal survey was a dead duck and unlikely to survive a High Court challenge. Let’s see if I’m right.
There is a great article here about the two Court cases which are being heard together. I think it’s quite simply the best analysis I have seen of the Court cases.
It is likely that the High Court will announce their orders quickly. The head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics has undertaken to the Court that he will not distribute the survey until 12 September.
Therefore, the options for the Court are:
· Pronounce orders before 12 September; or
· Put in place a restraining order, called an injunction, preventing the Commonwealth from distributing the ballot papers after 12 September.
The latter is most unlikely because of the cost to the taxpayer from such an injunction. It is much more likely that the Court will issue its orders before 12 September.
It will probably be some time after that, maybe months, before the Court issues reasons.
We shall then discover, either tomorrow or in the next week whether the survey is going ahead or not.
In the meantime, those who are fighting for the Yes campaign, as I am, should proceed on the basis that we are still full steam ahead.
I have not put on the blog the avalanche of articles about equal marriage that have popped up in the last week, including all the hate messages from neo-Nazi groups amongst others. There is simplytoo much material. I have shared thatmaterial on my Twitter feed.
The live feed for the High Court challenge can be seen here.
