Fran Wilde The MP who in the 1980s shepherded the decriminalisation of homosexuality legislation through Parliament has today described those MPs who held back during the final vote as "spineless." Speaking at an HIV conference today marking approximately thirty years of HIV and legalised homosexual intimacy, Fran Wilde noted that the parliamentary majority of only five votes which passed the decriminalisation law could have been greater but for the behaviour of several MPs. She said a human rights component of the bill had earlier been jettisoned in order to take the pressure off the main decriminalisation object, "and we got [that] through in the end by five votes but sadly some MPs hung around the back of the Ayes lobby for the final reading and when they saw that we had just sufficient votes to pass it they scurried off and voted against it." Wilde said this was so they could say to their electorates that they had voted against it. They were "spineless," she added. Asked after her speech where the balance lies between MPs representing their electorates or following their own hearts or heads, Wilde said "all politicians need to listen to their electorate and to the views in society and to lead where there is an obvious gap."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 8th May 2015 - 2:29pm