Same-sex marriage plebiscite will happen in Australia, just not this year. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is expected to announce the delay of the poll to 2017, contrary to his election promise that the country would vote on gay marriage this year.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the PM will announce on Sep. 13 that the public plebiscite will be held in February 2017. It will be compulsory; those who will fail to respond will be fined. It will have just one question: “Do you approve of a law to permit people of the same sex to marry?”

“The government has always said that a decision on same-sex marriage will be made by a vote of all Australians in a national plebiscite to be held as soon as practicable,” a spokesperson for the prime minister has explained to Fairfax Media why the poll will not be held this year as promised. “That commitment has not changed. Late last week, the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission) provided advice to the Special Minister of State that strongly recommended against the conduct of a plebiscite this calendar year.”

The outcome of the plebiscite, which is estimated to cost taxpayers $160 million, will not be binding, though. The Parliament may be asked to vote again.

Labor has largely opposed the plebiscite, citing the harm and the discrimination gay people would face. Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews wrote an open letter to Turnbull in July, asking him not to go through with the plebiscite as it could just be used as a tool to propagate bigotry against the LGBTI (lesbians, gay, bisexuals transgender/transsexual and intersex) community.

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Penny Wong, who is openly gay, has said the plebiscite would subject her relationship and her family to condemnation and censure by other people. She raises two children with partner Sophie Allouache.

Read:
Victoria Premier Andrews urges Turnbull to abandon same-sex marriage plebiscite
Scott Morrison says he faces bigotry discrimination for opposing same-sex marriage

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