Same sex marriage ends the debate, leads the coverage

Kevin Rudd’s promise to introduce legislation for “marriage equality” within the first 100 days of his government, if elected, was one of the few concrete new promises to emerge in the election debate. This promise, which came at the end of the debate, led the news in a number of debate round-ups internationally and locally. Britain’s Independent had a story online within half an hour of the debate’s conclusion headlined: “Australia election debate: Kevin Rudd promises to legalise same-sex marriage” and news.com.au had a story: “Rudd commits to gay marriage”. It is interesting that this issue, which hasn’t played large in the campaign so far, was an issue raised in a debate that had limited time and only explicitly tackled a handful of issues such as: the economy and taxes, asylum seekers, the NBN, transport, aged care, and climate change.