The Upper House of the NSW Parliament has narrowly voted down a bill to legalise same-sex marriage, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.
Despite initial hopes the upper house would pass the legislation, MPs
voted against it by 21 votes to 19 in the Legislative Council on
Thursday afternoon.
Christian Democratic Party MP the Reverend Fred Nile, who campaigned
against the legislation, said the outcome was 'a great victory for
marriage in the NSW upper house.'
Mr Nile said he believed a decisive
factor in the bill's defeat was Premier Barry O'Farrell's announcement
that he would vote against the bill if it came before the lower house.
Mr O'Farrell revealed his support for same-sex marriage a day after
New Zealand's Parliament voted to change its national laws in April.
But
in a statement released the night before the bill's introduction to the
upper house last month, Mr O'Farrell said that while he was a supporter
of marriage equality, he would not support the NSW legislation.
He
argued that 'only change enacted by the Federal Parliament can deliver
true equality in our marriage laws.'
Independent MP Alex Greenwich, a member of the cross-party working
group who devised the bill, said he took heart from the closeness of the
vote.
Mr Greenwich, who is the member for Sydney in the lower house and
therefore did not participate in the vote, said it was the first time
Coalition MPs had voted in favour of a same sex marriage bill in
Australia.
Liberals Catherine Cusack and Greg Pearce and Nationals Sarah
Mitchell and Trevor Khan supported the bill.