But he has agreed to meet with Mr Shorten after the current budget sittings of parliament, which finish on June 25, to come up with an "all parties" solution. Warren Entsch says he will sit down with Bill Shorten to discuss same-sex marriage. Credit:Andrew Meares "We are going to work together. Once the budget sittings are over, I'll pop around and have a yarn with Bill," Mr Entsch said. "I'm confident we will get something up in spring." Mr Entsch, who has spoken to Labor's Graham Perrett and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young about a possible cross-party solution, said his office had been deluged with correspondence about same-sex marriage, with the vast majority of people urging the Coalition to support a change in the law.

He received a text from a woman who had prayed since her gay son was three for God to "change him". Instead, she said, she was thankful that her son had changed her and taught her compassion. Mr Entsch said it was the families of gay couples, wanting equality for their loved ones who are pushing just as hard as those couples who will be able to marry if the law is changed. "There is a load of them out there," he said. On Sunday, Mr Shorten's office said there was no change to the Opposition Leader's intention to introduce his bill to parliament on Monday. The words "man and woman" and "husband and wife" would be replaced in the Marriage Act with "two people" if his bill is passed. And gay couples who have already married overseas would have their unions recognised under Australian law, with the repeal of section 88EA of the act. Mr Shorten reiterated his call for a Liberal MP to step forward and co-sponsor the bill. Deputy Labor Leader Tanya Plibersek is offering to remove her name from the bill, paving the way for a government member to take her place and make the legislation bipartisan.

Labor's moves have raised the pressure on Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who does not support same-sex marriage. He signalled his willingness last week to allow a vote as long as the process is genuinely bipartisan. Mr Abbott's sister Christine Forster, a City of Sydney Liberal councillor who is due to address a pro same-sex marriage in Sydney on Sunday, criticised Labor for progressing its bill. "I think it's put some politics into this issue, no one wants to see this become a political football," she said. "The Prime Minister was very clear when he was asked in question time through the week that this should be something that is owned by the whole parliament if this change happens, not by just one party and the private member's bill that Mr Shorten has put up is trying to somehow take ownership of that." Meanwhile, Australia's Anglican leader, Melbourne Archbishop Philip Freier, has written to Mr Abbott and Mr Shorten urging them that any changes to the Marriage Act to allow Anglican and other clergy to follow their conscience and refuse to officiate same sex marriages.

He wrote that the Anglican Church "abhors homophobia in any form" but said the church's order permits only the union of a man and a woman in marriage. "Should changes to the Marriage Act be legislated, I urge on behalf of the Anglican Church that there be provision made for decisions of conscience," Dr Freier wrote. "Ministers of religion recognised by a church or other religious body must have the right to refuse to solemnise a marriage if in doing so that would contravene his or her religious beliefs or the religious beliefs of the church or other religious body."