NSW’s newest gay MP supports marriage equality but won’t be heading down the aisle

NSW’s newest gay MP supports marriage equality but won’t be heading down the aisle
Image: Mark Pearson is the newest — and sixth — openly-gay MP in NSW Parliament. (Image source: animaljusticeparty.org)

ONE of Australia’s newest openly-gay MPs has told the Star Observer that while his focus is animal welfare he will approach other social issues with compassion and consideration, including those that affect the LGBTI community.

Mark Pearson of the Animal Justice Party was elected to NSW Parliament’s Legislative Council at March’s state election.

While the party received just 1.73 per cent of the vote, it was enough to beat the No Land Tax party to the coveted final upper house seat.

Pearson’s election means Australia is only the third country in the world, after the Netherlands and Germany, to elect a parliamentarian from a party dedicated to animal welfare.

He has also boosted the number of openly gay MPs in NSW Parliament to six, with the Liberals’ Don Harwin, Shayne Mallard and Bruce Notley-Smith, Labor’s Penny Sharpe and independent Alex Greenwich also elected.

Pearson said the party had polled well in the LGBTI-heavy neighbourhoods of Darlinghurst and Surry Hills as well as in suburban areas.

“What’s interesting is our demography is quite broad,” he said.

From the queer community to Liberal and Greens preferences, animals play an important role in many people’s lives or they hate live exports.”

The party’s policies include halting live animal exports, banning greyhound racing and outlawing hunting – none of which is likely to curry much favour with MPs from the Shooters and Fishers party.

“Our platform is compassion,” Pearson told the Star Observer.

“Stepping into the shoes of the other and thinking what will I do for them?”

During his first speech, Pearson listed none other than Queen Victoria as an inspiration.

Stating that evey year the late monarch was allowed to pardon a prisoner, he noted: “Where the prisoner presented had committed heinous acts of cruelty to animals, Queen Victoria never pardoned the prisoner”.

Born in Newcastle, Pearson has spent 25 years working in mental health and animal welfare and until recently was an executive director at Animal Liberation Australia.

Asked to nominate notable moments from his career, he lists the time he chained himself to former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s piggery to protest against sow stalls and a campaign he spearheaded which led Russia to ban imports of kangaroo meat.

But Pearson disagrees animal rights is a niche area.

About 80 per cent of issues parliament has to deal with have animals,” he said.

“Health, mining, even poles and wires.

If it isn’t an animal issue for parliament to deal with we’ll apply compassion and consideration.”

Pearson came out young and had the backing of a supportive family.

My father said, ‘you do what you want in your life so long as you don’t harm anyone,’ and that’s instilled a confidence in me,” he said.

By his late teens he was in Sydney enjoying the gay scene and getting his first glance of a Christian Democrat he now shares the minor parties’ benches with.

I was 17 years old and at Mardi Gras where Fred Nile was on his knees praying for rain,” Pearson said.

“We got some rain and I think he thought the Lord had answered his prayers.

Then the sun came out and it became the hottest steamiest Mardi Gras.”

While not in the purview of state parliament, Pearson backs marriage equality.

Same-sex marriage we would support because irrespective of your view of the institution of marriage no should be denied that,” he said.

However, he has no intention of heading down the alter himself: I’m not that interested in the institution of marriage but they have the right to enjoy the institution and whatever it means to them.”

He said it just needs to get passed, “and then we can all go and enjoy lunch”.

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7 responses to “NSW’s newest gay MP supports marriage equality but won’t be heading down the aisle”

  1. The only thing Fred Nile needs is to retire and move to Russia or Iran. With his EXTREME bigoted/nasty views, he is more than welcomed over there and not here in both diverse and multicultural Australia!

    • No I have a better idea, both Fred Nile and Tony Abbott should be sent to Bali and shot with 10,000 bullets – by the Indonesian Military firing squad!

  2. You are very brave to come out now, welcome to the new life of being out, as I did only just 2 years ago! We need more people like you to be our advocate of the LGBTI community! Well done, another one on our side for a change! I am sick and tired of Australia still banning gay marriage since 2004! Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten are both useless bigoted cunts! I want all bans on gay marriage in my office – to be put straight through my personal office shredder by 1 July, 2015!

  3. A very welcome addition to Australian politics and the Animal Justice Party will continue to grow.

  4. Welcome to the club mate! I just might be a pollie one day too, because we LGBTI people have been ignored, ridiculed, harassed, beaten and discriminated against for way far too long! I will make some changes and my policies are:

    * Ending ongoing political corruption;
    * Building a high-speed railway line linking Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra;
    * Ending all hate crimes against LGBTI people, by explicitly classing it as a federal terrorism offence;
    * Ending the “forced divorces” on Trans* people;
    * End the box on all career/job applications, to give people with a criminal past when they finish there prison sentence – a chance at employment;
    * Ending the “gender box” on all birth certificates, so Trans* and intersex people are recognised;
    * Ending the religious exemptions in the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977;
    * Ending all the LGBTI bans on marriage, surrogacy, IVF and adoption;
    * Expunge all gay sex criminal records in TAS, ACT, WA, NT and QLD (SA, VIC and NSW already have this scheme);
    * End the 50 year war on drugs, based on the Portugal model;
    * Ending the taxation exemptions on any/all religious groups to raise much needed revenue;
    * Ending the hateful and fraudulent conversion therapy on all LGBTI minors and adults by outlawing it; and
    * Better federal highway funding all across Australia;

    More too come…

    • Here is more policies;
      * Ending the religious exemptions in the federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984.
      * Ending the manufacture and usage of “micro-plastics” in manufacturing and everyday products that pollute our waterways.
      * Taskforce and/or Royal Commission into Catholic George Pell’s activities over the past 50 years!
      * Taskforce in the drug Ice (Already announced by the Government).
      * Mandatory HIV, chlamydia, relationship and sex education in all schools, private/public, religious/non religious to prevent and slow-down STIs and divorce.
      * Re-introduce the NBN (National Broadband Network) across Australia in the city, suburban, regional, rural and/or outback areas.