The political future of WA Labor Senator Louise Pratt is looking increasingly uncertain as counting continues in the race for the federal senate.
The long standing senator, and leading LGBTI rights activist, was shifted down to the second spot on the Labor party’s ticket a move that may see her miss out on a spot in parliament.
Despite Pratt already being in the government, the Labor party decided to put incoming Union heavy-weight Joe Bullock ahead of her on their senate ticket. Bullock the former head of the Shop Assistant’s Union is considerably more conservative than Ms Pratt and is a vocal opponent of marriage rights for transgender and gay people.
IN 2011 at the Labor’s party’s state conference Bullock argued against the party supporting marriage equality, at the time he stated;
“Marriage is special because it provides the stable balanced environment for child raising, the homosexual relationship however is naturally and necessarily infertile, it’s not marriage.”
Bullock argued that in his time as a unionist he had often fought for the rights of homosexual workers on a range of individual issues but maintained that marriage was not a right that could be argued for on an individual basis. Bullock said he believed homosexuals could be committed to each other, but the right of marriage should only be for men and women who wished to wed.
“No one would question the sincere commitment of many homosexual couples to each other, some may wish to celebrate that commitment or make a lifetime pledge. That pledge is however by definition not marriage, nor can a celebration be equal to marriage, simply because marriage has no equal,” said Bullock.
Final counting in the upper house may still take several days until a result in known however the ABC’s electoral site predicts the six senators from WA will be David Johnston, Michaelia Cash, Linda Reynolds from The Liberal Party, Joe Bullock for Labor, Wayne Dropulich from the fledgling Sporting Party and Scott Ludlum from The Greens.
In 2001 Pratt was the youngest women ever elected to WA’s upper house. During her time in the WA parliament Pratt was a member of the committee that reviewed laws relating to gay and lesbian people which led to the ‘Lesbian and Gay Law Reform Act 2002’. The introduction of the act brought in a ban on discrimination on the basis of sexuality, the lowering of the age of consent from 21 to 16, made it possible to speak about homosexuality in schools and gave the right to adopt and the right for same sex partners to inherit from a deceased partner.
In 2008 Pratt made the move to federal politics. Her key policy interest areas included climate change and economic inequality, increasing women’s workforce participation, improving maternity services and early childhood education, ending all discrimination against LGBTI Australians, population and development issues and closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Last year Pratt, along with three other Labor senators introduced a bill for marriage equality. While the bill was unsuccessful the Senator’s speech which spoke her personal life with trans* partner Aram Hosie gained wide spread exposure.
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