ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr appears to be supporting Labor's compromise position on same-sex marriage.
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The stance will allow a conscience vote this Parliament but commit to legalising same-sex marriage in government.
Mr Barr also backs Labor leader Bill Shorten's adoption of the Coalition's turn-back-the-boats policy on asylum seekers.
"To the extent that Labor's policy needs to balance those humanitarian goals and a reality of wanting to avoid deaths at sea, the policy that appears to be emerging from the national conference that we will dramatically increase the humanitarian refugee intake, whilst maintaining an approach that doesn't encourage people smugglers and seeks to avoid deaths at sea, appears to strike the balance," he said from Melbourne on Friday.
Mr Barr came to the chief ministership last year with a promise to pursue same-sex marriage, publicly declaring his wish to marry his long-term partner.
"I want to assure gay and lesbian Canberrans, and indeed Australians, that I will continue to be a passionate voice for reform in this area," Mr Barr said in December.
This weekend, he is one of seven Canberra delegates at the national conference where a block of Labor MPs are pushing to replace Labor's conscience vote on the same-sex marriage with a binding vote.
Mr Barr said it was a human-rights issue and did not fit Labor's normal "life or death" criteria for conscience votes. But given the "practicalities" of different viewpoints in Labor, a compromise would see a conscience vote this term with a promise that a future Labor government would bring forward legislation to legalise same-sex marriage.
"That would ensure that people who went to the last election, where Labor's policy was to allow a conscience vote, could maintain faith with that position, but in the future, if the issue isn't resolved in this Parliament ,then Labor would get behind a Labor government bill, as opposed to a private members' bill."
Mr Barr headed straight to Melbourne after two days of meetings with state and territory leaders in Sydney, where he was charged with working with Queensland on changes to education funding. A proposal from South Australia would see the states and territories taking over early childhood education, with vocational education moving to the Commonwealth.
Mr Barr said he was looking for a model that avoided duplication between state and federal governments, with responsibility depending at the moment on whether children were in childcare or preschool. In the ACT, preschool was funded mainly by the territory government, but four-year-olds in childcare were funded mainly by the Commonwealth. One possibility was to have funding follow the child, regardless of where they were being taught, Mr Barr said.
Queensland and the ACT are to bring proposals back to the national leaders later in the year, along with proposals to improve students' outcomes. Mr Barr said more and more money was being spent on schools, but results were not improving. Research suggested the focus should be on improving teacher quality, not on reducing class sizes.
Efforts by state and territory leaders to streamline funding went beyond education, also looking to the way some medical procedures were funded by Medicare outside hospitals, but by state and territory governments inside hospitals, and at rent assistance paid to people in private accommodation, but not to those in state and territory public housing.