Gay marriage advocates claim Kevin Rudd pledged to ”fix” the issue and told them Julia Gillard had previously supported it when she was a member of his cabinet.
Former Australian Medical Association boss Kerryn Phelps, her partner Jackie Stricker and another campaigner, Geoff Thomas, say they discussed gay marriage with Mr Rudd, then foreign affairs minister, at a function during the ALP national conference in Sydney last December.
”He [Mr Rudd] absolutely said that if he was prime minister it [gay marriage] would have gone through,” Ms Stricker said.
”We couldn’t believe how open and forthright he was.”
Mr Thomas, who shot to national prominence after speaking out in support of his gay son on the ABC’s Q&A program in 2010, said Mr Rudd told him: ”I hope you know if I was prime minister this would be law.”
According to Mr Thomas, who revealed details of the conversation in an interview with The Sunday Age, Mr Rudd went on to say: ”The reason Julia Gillard is in power is because of a deal she did with the Australian Christian Lobby and [conservative union boss] Joe De Bruyn.”
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