Michael McCormack has been elected as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, in the wake of Barnaby Joyce’s resignation on Friday 23 February 2018.
Joyce resigned amid controversy surrounding sexual assault allegations released by West Australian Rural Woman of the year Catherine Marriott, and his affair with now-pregnant former staffer Vikki Campion.
McCormack’s elevation to leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia has also proved contentious. In 1993, as editor of the Wagga Wagga paper The Daily Advertiser, McCormack penned an article entitled “Sordid homosexuality – it’s becoming more entrenched”.
Published “from the editor’s desk,” the article attributes the AIDs epidemic to the gay community, describes those condemning homosexuality as exhibiting “moral backbone,” and writes, “unfortunately gays are here and, if the disease their unnatural acts helped spread doesn’t wipe out humanity, they’re here to stay”.
“I apologised for it – I have moved on from it and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it,” McCormack said in an interview with the ABC in 2010.
“I have grown and learned not only to tolerate but to accept all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, or any other trait or feature which makes each of us different and unique,” McCormack reiterated in a statement amid the marriage equality debate in August 2017.
McCormack has apologised on multiple occasions for the column in recent years, and voted yes to same-sex marriage last year, at the will of his constituents.