HIS portfolio responsibilities include justice, information technology, fisheries and transport — but Brian Greig is best known as the Democrats’ spokesman on gay and lesbian issues.

The 36-year-old interim Democrats leader is seen as a classic member of Generation X. After just three years in parliament he has become the second gay leader of a major Australian political party, behind the Greens’ Bob Brown, and lives in Perth with Keith, his partner of 16 years.

In his inaugural speech to federal parliament, Senator Greig, a former ALP staffer, said he had known he was gay since the age of 12.

“This has profoundly influenced my life and given me personal insight into intolerance, prejudice and the hatred that I might not otherwise have experienced,” he said.

Senator Greig said that as a young man he found coming to terms with his sexuality an alienating and lonely experience.

“I wish someone older than me, and wiser than me, had taken me aside and said, `You’re all right kid. You can grow up to be a doctor or a teacher just like anyone else. You are not sick or crazy or evil. Most of all though, you can love and be loved without hating yourself for it’.”

Born in Fremantle, Senator Greig grew up in the small fishing village of Lancelin, two hours north of Perth, where his father worked as a professional crayfisher. At 13 he went to boarding school in Perth before studying teaching at Murdoch University.

During summer breaks he worked as a deckhand on his father’s boat, while at the same time campaigning against the mining of local sand dunes.

In the mid to late 1980s, he was active in student politics, helping to re-establish the National Union of Students.

His activism continued throughout the 1990s as he campaigned for gay law reform, and helped set up the Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights.

As late as last year, Senator Greig willingly took the brunt of anti-gay vitriol during his home state’s debate on homosexual law reform.

He served as an electorate officer and researcher to nine members of parliament, including three Labor Opposition leaders, before becoming disillusioned with the ALP.

Senator Greig has always been a close and supportive ally of Natasha Stott Despoja.