![The question facing the prime minister is whether he will act to try to control the inevitable debate, or risk events ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170801052446/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/m/u/a/t/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.gxmulj.png/1501559952486.jpg)
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There has been an increasing trend in recent years for Prime Ministers to find themselves stuck between the love – well support, at least - of voters and their party.
Kevin Rudd had the support of voters but not his party. Julia Gillard had the party but not the voters. Tony Abbott very briefly held both and rather rashly lost them.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull came back to the top job because he had the support of voters, if not his party, but voters have become disillusioned which has left him vulnerable in his party room.
But now we may have reached that point in time when Mr Turnbull has to choose whose support he ultimately needs and wants.
![Kevin Rudd had the support of voters but not his party. Tony Abbott very briefly held both and rather rashly lost them.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170801052446/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/f/q/g/e/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1500622550645.jpg)
Voters want the same sex marriage issue settled, either because they are supportive of it or because they are just sick of hearing about it and see the fact that it hasn't been dealt with as a sign of the failure of our political system.
Keith Pitt, a junior LNP minister from Queensland, was one conservative MP who reflected this in an interview on Tuesday.
He said his voters were not necessarily supportive of same sex marriage but they just want it dealt with, though he insisted the policy was for this to happen through a plebiscite.
MPs supportive of a change in the law sense a change in the atmospherics in this debate: in the level of public frustration over it. They are prepared to bring it to a head when Parliament returns for the Spring sittings which start next week.
As Liberal Senator Dean Smith wrote in the Financial Review on Monday "over the last fortnight, the continuing marriage equality debate has been dominated not by whether it should be done, but what mechanism should be used to do it".
![We may have reached that point in time when Mr Turnbull has to choose whose support he ultimately needs and wants.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170801052446/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/r/8/6/c/4/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1501559952757.jpg)
"This point deserves attention because it signals a profound shift in the momentum of the public discussion".
The question facing Mr Turnbull is whether he should act to try to control the inevitable debate or risk events running on without him.
There are obvious dangers in being seen to change policy, but it would seem there were much greater dangers in the humiliation of letting his party room effectively set the terms of the debate, and the ultimate policy outcome.
The potential wins for Mr Turnbull – who prides himself on finding solutions to wicked problems – if he can find a path through to getting an outcome on this issue are manifest.
This is, after all, an issue where voters think they know where he personally stands and equally mark him down for not getting on with it.
So what are the obstacles?
Obviously there are conservatives in his party who are threatening all sorts of charmingness if the government oversees a change in policy that would allow same sex marriage. Preselections are threatened; the Prime Minister's position is threatened.
(This is in addition to the threats that have been made to sitting NSW MPs who do not cut the mustard for the party's conservative base, raising the spectre of masses of sitting Coalition MPs potentially being challenged, and disendorsed, before the next election in what would really be a suicide note for the Liberal Party).
There is the issue of the government's existing policy which is in support of a plebiscite on the issue.
And then there are the various questions about the right of MPs to speak their minds, launch private members' bills and even cross the floor.
Doing all of these things has become a lot more fashionable in recent times. We have no greater authority than the former prime minister, Tony Abbott, who is long on being self-righteous about his rights as an MP to speak out on issues he feels are important.
In 2013, when a bill recognising same-sex marriages overseas was put to the Parliament, Mr Abbott defended the rights of a Liberal senator to cross the floor on the vote.
"I appreciate Sue's [Boyce] position and we're not a Stalinist party, never have been, never will be", he said.
Mr Turnbull has noted in recent days that "in our party, backbenchers have always had the right to cross the floor. In the Labor Party, you get expelled for doing that".
"It's always been a fundamental principle in the Liberal Party and indeed, the National Party. So it's a very different political culture to the very authoritarian Labor Party."
This was widely seen as a softening of his previous stance against any attempt to pass a private members' bill on the issue. Opponents of a policy change argue that allowing a free vote – and a vote which could see Coalition MPs support a Labor procedural motion - would undermine Mr Turnbull's authority.
Yet John Howard allowed conscience votes five times during his prime ministership. And it was on political management grounds rather than noble ones.
The Coalition policy is that there shouldn't be a parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage without a plebiscite first. A plebiscite was scheduled for February this year but the Senate blocked it.
The Prime Minister has already said it would not be coming back this term.
Mr Turnbull has argued until now that the government cannot put the matter to a parliamentary vote in which the Liberals would be given a free vote this term because it would break an election promise.
The supporters of same-sex marriage now say, though, that they have honoured the party's position by voting for the plebiscite last year and are now free to support a private members' bill if one was to come forward.
Current scenarios
Among the various scenarios being floated at the moment, one is for the plebiscite to be brought back one more time, just to emphasise that it has no hope of getting up.
A private members' bill in support of same sex marriage could be put up; would probably be denied a hearing by the government; Labor would move a vote on the issue; Coalition MPs would cross the floor.
In addition to a proposal for a postal vote, other ideas are said to be floating around the cabinet, a scenario Finance Minister Mathias Cormann seemed to confirm when he noted on Tuesday morning that the plebiscite legislation "was rejected and we're now exploring other ways to keep faith with the Australian people, to give them the opportunity to have a say on whether or not the definition of marriage should be changed".
So the options facing the Prime Minister are that a private members' bill gets up, despite his best efforts, and a policy change takes place without him. Or he can try to find a way to facilitate a debate, and a change in policy, which he can own.