Bill Shorten, Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong reach vote

There is nothing to fear from equality.

Mr Shorten earlier unveiled a new asylum seeker policy – which was welcomed by all sections of the party – including $450 million for United Nations refugee efforts, a doubling of the humanitarian intake and new oversight of detention centres.

Wong, who is gay, spoke about having to vote for “her own discrimination” in 2004, when the Marriage Act was amended to explicitly exclude same-sex couples from marrying.

But Mr Shorten was given loud applause when he dared the Abbott government to “bring on” a climate change election.

Small business issues were not high on the agenda at Labor’s national conference over the weekend, in stark contrast to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s budget reply speech where the he promised a 5% tax cut for small companies and called for greater funding for STEM skills.

The policy shift is designed to recover green support, sharpen the contrast with Prime Minister Tony Abbott over climate change and make global warming the defining battleground of the next federal election.

OPPOSITION Leader Bill Shorten is set to unveil a bold climate policy goal requiring half of Australia’s large-scale energy production to be generated using renewable sources within 15 years.

The ALP conference passed a motion that means MPs will not be bound to vote for the issue until 2019, and will be given freedom to vote against if they wish to until then.

Mr Abbott has so far refused to grant his MPs that latitude to vote with their individual conscience.

The managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Shelton, said the compromise deal was “a blow to freedom and tolerance”.

Though on paper the move lowers support for same-sex marriage in Parliament, some campaigners are hopeful that by Labor ensuring a free vote to its MPs, the Liberals will do the same.

Coalition MP Warren Entsch is one of the co-sponsors of a cross-party bill providing for marriage equality which will be introduced into Parliament when it returns next month.

Deputy leader Tanya Plibersek hoped Australia would have marriage equality by Christmas.

In an opinion piece, Shorten has warned that a binding vote on same-sex marriage would place “a handful of Labor MPs” in a very hard position.