By VICTORIA STONE-MEADOWS
FEDERAL MP for La Trobe Jason Wood has officially changed his stance to support same-sex marriage after having over 5000 voters in the electorate participate in a poll on the issue.
Results from the #LATROBEVOTES survey as of 12 August showed 57.9 per cent of the 5429 respondents counted to date support changing the Marriage Act (1961) to allow same-sex marriage in Australia.
Mr Wood previously said he supported a conscience vote on this issue, though his personal position on changing the Marriage Act was listed as undecided.
“I have not publicly revealed until now that I have now changed my position on same-sex marriage,” he said in a written statement.
“In the past, I opposed same-sex marriage, however for a number of reasons I now support same-sex marriage.”
During the Coalition’s marathon debate on same-sex marriage last week, Mr Wood was one of the 33 Coalition MPs who voted in favour of a conscience vote in the party room.
“My firm view is that there should be a free vote,” Mr Wood told The Mail.
“That is what I argued for in the party room. To me this precedent has been set numerous in times in the past.”
“Even under the Howard Government when we faced the question of stem cell research, we were afforded a conscience vote on that matter.”
Despite the option for a conscience vote being denied to the party room, Mr Wood believes having a plebiscite on the issue is the next best outcome.
“Currently if a conscience vote were taken in the parliament, same-sex marriage would not pass both houses. This was made clear to me during our recent joint Coalition party room meeting,” he said.
“If this were to happen there would be less of an opportunity to have same-sex marriage legalised through a plebiscite in the future.”
Following the debate, Education Minister Christopher Pyne accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of ‘branch stacking’ the party room with members of the National Party to skew the results of the decision on a conscience vote.
Mr Wood said he would have preferred that the Liberal Party had its own meeting separate from their Coalition counterparts.
“I agree with Christopher Pyne in that the Nationals are a very conservative party, I think it’s important to remember that the Nationals had their very own meeting on this issue, therefore I feel the Liberal Party should have been able to do the same.”
Mr Wood has said the results of his electorate-wide survey to gauge the mood of his constituents was a defining factor in him changing his official stance on same-sex marriage.
“The #LATROBEVOTES survey really confirmed what I thought was the case,” he said.
“I privately had already changed my view since the last election for a number of reasons – but I had to know that the majority of the electorate would support my change in view.”
“I went to the last election opposed to same-sex marriage and it would have been unfair to the people of La Trobe to change my conscience vote without that confirmation.”
Mr Wood presented the results of the survey so far to the joint party room debate in an effort to demonstrate that the people of his electorate supported change to the Marriage Act.
“#LATROBEVOTES has other benefits in that by all reports, it is currently the largest survey of its kind Australia-wide,” he said.
“This meant that the results weighed in heavily when I spoke to the joint party room and I’ve got no doubt that the great response rate was a strong demonstration to the Prime Minister that individuals want to have their voice heard.”
