Brindal: Bill will survive

The South Australian MP who withdrew as a Liberal party election candidate after revelations of a same-sex affair is confident his proposed civil unions legislation will have parliamentary support even if he quits politics.

Mark Brindal told Sydney Star Observer this week he had made a contingency plan for the private member’s bill proposing civil unions for people in non-traditional relationships he put forward earlier this year.

I have already made a contingency plan and I have every belief that even were I to drop out of parliament, I have sussed out those of my colleagues who would be prepared to continue to sponsor the bill, Brindal said of the proposed legislation that would include same-sex couples.

[And] so long as I survive this I will be sponsoring that bill.

South Australia is the only state or territory without laws recognising same-sex relationships.

Last week Brindal said he would not stand as a Liberal candidate at state elections in March after admitting he had sex in his electorate office with a 24-year-old man earlier this year.

Brindal, who has said he is bisexual, told the Star he had yet to decide to run as an independent.

I’m not quite sure I want to keep subjecting myself to this shit, Brindal said.

If you’re a member of parliament, matters that have got nothing to do with your job, because they relate to bisexuality or gay sex, become matters of international reporting, he said.

What I’m trying to do is get my life together at present [and] work out what my future is.

The MP again lashed homophobic elements of the South Australian media and politics, deriding a report in one Adelaide newspaper this week which questioned three taxpayer-funded trips he had taken to Thailand in recent years.

They tried to find something wrong in my travel reports, Brindal said.

The whole thing in my view is a salacious attempt to peep at gays.

The speaker of the South Australian parliament has since said Brindal complied with parliamentary rules when reporting a study tour to Thailand in 2003, ABC News reported.

I think it’s unfortunate if people draw an inference that because you go to a particular country you might somehow be doing something you shouldn’t, I don’t think that’s fair, speaker Bob Such said.