will promise to picket the wedding of Crocodile Dundee and The Man From Snowy River.

Left of centre is probably a more accurate description.

This is blatant fairweather friend tactics from Shorten. He has been largely silent on gay marriage since it became an issue. His predecessor, Julia Gillard, actively opposed gay marriage and struggled to keep opposition to it as part of the labor platform.

When Gillard was turfed out of office, the leadership was contested by bill shorten, an anodyne, spineless and blairesque creature of the labor right and Anthony albanese of the left. Albanese was an early adopter on gay marriage and was much admired by the party rank and file for having strongly supported it within the party. He received two thirds of the support from individual labor party members but was defeated in his bid to become labor leader largely because of shortens strong support from the more right wing unions.

Now it appears that gay marriage is actually going to be passed during the tenure of a conservative government, just as it has done in New Zealand and the UK. Shorten is desperately trying to get on the right side of history by suddenly announcing his strong support for gay marriage at 5 minutes to midnight. If anything it is probably just going to annoy the MPs who are trying to organise a bipartisan bill that will pass the house.