KEVIN Rudd has flagged a possible referendum on gay marriage as he pushes to capture the youth vote.

Three days after he first appealed to young Australians to lend him their ideas and help him "cook with gas", the Prime Minister laid out marriage equality and the national broadband network as policies he believed would appeal.

Mr Rudd, who publicly changed his mind to support gay marriage last month, said Opposition Leader Tony Abbott must allow his members a conscience vote in the next parliament.

"If he doesn't, then I think we then have to look at other mechanisms, including the possibility of recourses to plebiscite or referendum," he said.

He said he wanted to see marriage equality, and his daughter and others had helped him change his mind.

"Wherever I go in Australia, it just hits you in the face what young people think about this, which is that our current arrangements are just wrong and offensive to people."

He said he wanted to see equality because it was causing so much unnecessary angst.

Mr Rudd said young people had also complained to him that broadband was not up to world standards and he agreed.

"The digital generation know this, older folks tend not to," he said.

"So I've got to say marriage equality, decent, world-class broadband - these are two selling points to young Australians, all of whom are wired for sound."

Mr Rudd also employed a range of "Ruddisms" at his first press conference to help him get his message across, confessing his daughter Jessica had already chided him after he declared he wanted to be "cooking with gas" with young people.

"Jessica told me last night was one of the daggiest things she's ever heard me saying," he said.

"None of you have daggy dads?"

But he said he expected the personality of "Kevin" would turn "a bunch of people" off.

Follow Jessica Marszalek on twitter: JessMarie_News

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Originally published as Gay marriage, NBN lead youth vote push