Christopher Pyne accuses Tony Abbott of ‘branch-stacking’ over gay marriage in

Queensland Liberal National Party MP Warren Entsch told the coalition partyroom this morning he planned to push ahead with his plan to introduce a gay marriage bill and the party should decide whether MPs get a free vote.

According to previous calculations by advocacy group Australian Marriage Equality, a slim majority of federal MPs support gay marriage, meaning the bill is likely to pass if Coalition MPs are allowed a free vote.

“I reviewed my pre-election statements and what I said was that this matter – same sex marriage – will be dealt with by the Coalition party room in the usual way”.

It is understood Mr Pyne described this as branch-stacking and said the issue should be decided by the Liberal party room.

Foreign minister Julie Bishop, who was beside Abbott when he spoke at a media conference in Canberra, said, “The prime minister committed this to being a Coalition discussion”.

“Given that the Coalition party room didn’t have time this morning to deal with it …”

Mr Enstch is expected to lodge notice of a cross-party bill to legalise same-sex marriage with the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Abbott, who firmly opposes same-sex marriage, said everyone wanted to find “a way forward here”.

“My position hasn’t changed, we’ll see what the party room has to say”.

Abbott has repeatedly said the government had other reforms to focus on and that marriage equality was not a priority, which advocates saw as attempts to delay the issue despite polls consistently showing most Australians now support it.

There are two other marriage equality bills doing the rounds in Parliament House – one each from the Greens and one from NSW Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm.

The committee will decide on whether the bill can be introduced to parliament next Monday during private member’s business.

In the regular Liberal-National joint meeting that followed soon after the Liberal meeting, Mr Abbott deferred debate on a free vote, noting that the agenda was already very full with the government’s new emission reduction target being discussed.

Entsch said he would not dicuss the content of the bill until it was presented to parliament, which was “the appropriate place for debate”.

Abbott’s sister, Christine Forster, praised Entsch for taking the issue to the Liberal party room, saying it was an important discussion.

The opposition has allowed its MPs a conscience vote on gay marriage and the vast majority of its MPs have publicly declared their support for the legislation.