Warren Entsch was turned on. The Coalition backbencher was then a 20-something stockman in far north Queensland and a girl at the local pub caught his eye.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“I saw this bird pass me in shorts and a boob tube,” he says. “I said to the owner of the pub, ‘Friggin’ hell — who have you got here working for you? That’s a good-looking sheila. Where did she come from?”’
The stranger, it turned out, was not a stranger at all.
At the time Mr Entsch was dating a local girl from Georgetown, 400 kilometres south-west of Cairns, and they would drink at the pub with her male cousin.
“After a few beers he would become very feminine with the other guys and would end up having a fight.”
The cousin disappeared for a few months.
Now Mr Entsch discovered why: he had gone to Sydney to have a sex change operation and returned as a woman and worked as a barmaid.
“That amazed me,” Entsch says. “Imagine having the courage to do that.”
It was the moment that set Entsch — dubbed a “progressive redneck” — on his path to become the Coalition’s most passionate advocate for gay rights.
A former crocodile hunter, grazier and RAAF serviceman, the 64-year-old recognises he’s the last person one would expect to find in that role.
Entsch’s advocacy culminated this week when Prime Minister Tony Abbott asked him to deliver a private member’s bill on same-sex marriage, co-sponsored by a Labor MP, for a vote later this year.
“The time has come,” Mr Entsch said, “to put this to the test”.
Mr Entsch’s electorate, which runs from Cairns to Cape York, adjoins that of independent Bob Katter who famously said he would “walk backwards from Bourke to Brisbane” if a homosexual person could be found living in his patch.
Mr Entsch, meanwhile, says gay people cannot be stereotyped by where they live or what they do.
His long-running campaign to eliminate laws discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTI) Australians was spurred by getting to know a Special Air Service (SAS) veteran who was gay.
The man had depression and was worried his partner would not be able to access his superannuation if he died.
“I told that story to (former prime minister) John Howard and it really surprised him,” Mr Entsch recalls.
“But he’s SAS,” Mr Howard said.
“I said, ‘Yes prime minister, a person’s courage is not determined by their sexual orientation’.”
