Turns out I was insufficiently pessimistic about the Liberals liberal-ness. They've bullied the education minister into wrecking the program.

Case law defines 'personal activities" as those preventing the employee from answering a call in within whatever time frame the contract may require. The fact of doing, say, your washing doesn't count, for example.…

Zero hour contracts are unlawful in most of the US. You /can/ have 'on call' contracts, but most states (only 4 exceptions, IIRC) require the employee to be paid for all time while on call, albeit usually at a reduced rate of 50-75%.

You're right on the first part, but wrong on the second. Employment in the US is almost universally 'at will' employment: you can be fired for any reason or no reason so long as it isn't a protected category under federal or state law. The US Constitution provides no protections within employment at all so it doesn't bear referencing. All protection is within employment, civil rights, and to small degree, case laws.

Also, "employer assumptions about your sexuality". While you could in theory be fired for being straight, in practice people are fired…

That link again: http://www.gendercentre.org.au/resources/polare-archive/archived-articles/the-marriage-amendment-act.htm

The law does not directly require it, but in the past it was "to get you change recognised you have to comply with our demands, and those…

PwC economics and policy partner Jeremy Thorpe notes the impact a stand-alone plebiscite would have on the LGBTI community saying; "What we find is the cost to the LGBTI community are…

This 'order of things'…

I'm of the opinion that that is looking at it from the wrong direction in so far as it puts the focus on the subject within the institution, not the institution. It is buying into the framing of the argument by the religious that makes it an argument in the first place.

Those within (or without) are too diverse to address in law IMO. Putting aside even the low end stuff of minor cock ups in implementation in law (cf. England, mentioned elsewhere) there will always be someone feeling left out, or actually being left out by trying to account for all possible options.

IMO the state should be accommodating the religious and non-religious only because that is the basis of objection in the first place: "marriage" can be a religious function performed however a particular religion prefers and with no legal standing as far as the State is concerned, and "civil union" can be the State recognised partnership between freely consenting & informed adults (with the underlying assumption being that the State promoting stable partnerships between said individuals/groups being a socially good thing (which I have some doubts about, personally)) which has weight and status and consequence within the law. Put "marriage" on the same level as "confirmation" is for, say Catholics. Reserve "civil union" for the State. Differentiate it linguistically and society will (eventually) follow. It also serves to undercut the religious objections and removes the State from the religious moral argument – the only argument with any weight and the one the State shouldn't have any opinion on.

We did it the…

One interesting thing that I realised…

Almost certainly they are legally exactly one of (male/female) so the law will ignore all the subtlety and use the rules they have. But the adultery law seems weird on all counts, so who knows.

Lovely. I do love a good unintended consequence.

I'm aware of some of the issues, but the plebiscite wording is still unknown. NSW has our famous "none of the…

Well, up to a point. I think we might want to be very careful to nuance that where the "T" in LGBT is concerned. ALL trans people deserve equal access to marriage…

The plebiscite is hopefully going to be a bit more like the anti-smacking…

Thirty years ago we didn't have a plebiscite or referendum, but the meeting I went to at Henderson would have been sickening, with Key Hay and his preacher mate, except that the crowd was not with them, and…

Oh, yes, one of the links I have in the piece on plebiscites in general says they're NOT compulsory, so good to…

See also the Saarland plebiscite (or referendum)

Which is what Winston Peters wanted. Human rights debased to fodder for an idiots' auction.

Wow.

at best you’d get some awful version of “Throw your arms around me”

That would be fabulous.

One positive is that Turnbull has…

It'll be fine, really, because the Christians have so far failed to get the restrictions on hate speech lifted for the duration. They have tried, though.

I'm not sure what their version of hate speech would actually sound like,…