Former Western Australian Senator Joe Bullock has left the Australian Labor Party to join the Liberals.

Now living in Tasmania the former senator says he has no intention of returning to parliament, but hopes to continue his political life as a member of the Tasmanian Liberal Party.

The veteran Labor figure spent 39 years as a member of the ALP, serving two of those representing WA in the senate. Bullock stepped down as a senator in 2016, citing his party’s support for marriage equality as the reason for his resignation.

The ABC report that marriage equality played a part in the former senator’s decision to switch parties as well.

Bullock spent much of his political career opposing marriage equality, pleading with members not to adopt a pro-marriage equality stance at the 2011 state conference.

At the time then Senator Louise Pratt noted that the Union leader’s opposition to marriage equality echoed his opposition to lowering the age of consent a decade earlier.

The former senator also courted controversy with comments about fellow WA representative Louise Pratt, publicly questioning her then relationship with prominent trans advocate Aram Hosie.

In 2014, Bullock said Senator Pratt was “a leading advocate of homosexual marriage… she’s a lesbian I think, although after her partner’s sex change I can’t be sure.”