The Coalition will oppose marriage equality going into the next election if the same-sex marriage postal survey returns a no vote, Malcolm Turnbull has said.
Turnbull told 4BC Radio on Tuesday that if the survey returned a yes vote, a private member’s bill “along the lines” of the attorney general’s draft or Senator Dean Smith’s bill would be brought to parliament and amendments for further religious protections could be debated then.
“If there’s a no vote, we won’t [facilitate a private members bill] … If the people have spoken against it, we won’t be proposing it at the election I can assure you,” he said.
On Tuesday Tony Abbott used an appearance on 2GB to complain that religious freedoms had not been adequately protected before the survey, while the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, and the former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson backed the government’s position this could be done after a successful yes vote.
Earlier, marriage equality advocates responded to the Guardian Essential poll, which found support for marriage equality sat at 55% (down 4% in a fortnight) to 34% of those opposed (up 3%), although yes voters were still more likely to vote.
Supporters of marriage equality attribute the poll drop to an expected tightening because the campaign period gives equal airtime to scare campaigns around gender education of children, free speech and religious freedom. The Equality Campaign does not intend to fight the campaign on opponents’ issues.
The long-time LGBTI rights campaigner Rodney Croome said the dip was “inevitable ... given the onslaught of fear-mongering by the no side”.
Croome said the yes campaign needed “to ensure support doesn’t slip even further over the coming weeks” and to be “agile because the vote won’t be won by one message or one strategy alone”.
“At every step the yes campaign needs to be evaluating the effectiveness of its messages and its campaign techniques to ensure it stays one step ahead of the no case.”
Greenwich said after door-knocking tens of thousands of doors and 300,000 phone calls the Equality Campaign had “a strong indication people are voting yes”.
“Regardless of what the polls are showing, we need to ensure the survey reflects the settled will of the Australian people ... by getting every yes voter to return their vote,” he said. “We always knew this was going to be tough. We’ve also always known that we need to do everything we can to win this.
“It’s certainly a reminder of that.”
On Tuesday, in a statement authorised by Lyle Shelton, the Coalition for Marriage said that its internal polling at the end of last week showed “a 7% swing away from the yes vote” from heights of 65% in favour before the high court challenge to the postal survey.
“The yes campaign lost over 1 million votes in 10 days. This is absolutely extraordinary,” it said. “People are sitting up and paying attention. Australians are concerned about the consequences of change.”
The federal director of Liberals and Nationals for Yes, Andrew Bragg, said that Australians have “a good sense what this survey is about and what it is not about”.
“The focus of our campaign has been to address complacency head on, by encouraging people to vote and post,” he said. “It is critical that all voices can be respectfully listened to. Any breakouts or any attempt to muffle debate could be lethal to the yes case.”
On Tuesday Abbott said it was unfair that “only one side of this argument can get a respectful hearing”, citing backlash on Twitter when Israel Folau said he planned to vote no.
Abbott said Australians were being asked to sign a “blank cheque” in the face of a “big agenda” that threatened religious freedom, freedom of speech and parental choice.
“My real disappointment is that the government has not specified in advance exactly what these protections are going to be … they have effectively washed their hands of it all by saying they’ll facilitate a private member’s bill. Well you cannot control a private member’s bill, by definition.”
Turnbull said the exposure draft contained protections for religious freedom already but further debate would see “parliament at its best” and ensure “a good outcome”.
Dutton told Sky News it was “not possible” to finalise a same-sex marriage bill before the postal survey because the full plebiscite bill was rejected by the Senate so swiftly.
He said it was a decision of cabinet and the party room to allow a private member’s bill in the event of a yes vote and to decide religious protections one by one in the parliament after that.
Dutton said that he, like treasurer Scott Morrison, would defend religious freedom, accusing “fringe elements” of wanting to impose programs such as the anti-bullying and sexual diversity Safe Schools program.
Addressing the National Press Club in his capacity as head of the Australian War Memorial, Nelson said in relation to marriage equality that people needed the “imaginative capacity to see the world through the eyes of others”.
“It makes no difference to me – these are things I’ve never been forced to think about but I’m forced to think about it now. To imagine what if I were a gay person? ... How would I feel about the preclusion [from marriage]?”
Nelson said the only question was “do we or do we not support same-sex marriage?” and that he had confidence in the government and parliament to work to protect religious freedom.
On Tuesday evening the New South Wales Liberal premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and the former NSW governor Marie Bashir will attend a marriage equality event at NSW parliament in Sydney.