28 September

I don't express many views here about same-sex marriage. But one thing the debate has highlighted for me is the resources and determination of very conservative people in Australia and around the world, and their political skill and ruthlessness. Euthanasia is another topic where their views have determined public policy for a long time, in clear opposition to the views of most Australians. It tells you that their skill in politics has given them power well beyond their actual numbers in society. Less well known is that it's these same people who reinvented conservative politics in the late 1970s, and are behind a lot of the modern tactics of attack politics - dog whistling, framing, the free speech and offence and political correctness campaigns etc. Hats off to them for their initiative and intelligence in this - those who oppose them have been fairly clueless in response.