THE ACT government will fight a federal government challenge in the High Court to the territory’s same-sex marriage laws.

ACT Greens member for Molonglo Shane Rattenbury’s Parliamentary Agreement, with the ACT Labor Party, saw the Marriage Equality Bill introduced into the ACT Legislative Assembly in September.

But on Thursday Federal Attorney-General and Liberal party member George Brandis described the territory laws as  ”a threat” to the ”well-established position” that marriage laws should be nationally consistent.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher says she received a phone call from Senator Brandis on Wednesday night asking her to scrap the laws, but she refused.

Mr Rattenbury says the federal government should “have better things to do than pour [their] efforts into quashing the right of loving people to marry each other.”

“[Tony Abbott] should be a real ‘liberal’ and stop intervening in the personal lives of everyday people who only want equal recognition for their loving relationship,” Mr Rattenbury says.

“This is also about the rights of the ACT people. ACT residents and the ACT Assembly support marriage equality yet they face the prospect of Tony Abbott intervening to try and prevent us making progress.”