SA Labor Senator Penny Wong set to wed partner Sophie Allouache

The Labor veteran is set to tie the knot at long last after becoming a champion of Australia’s same sex marriage movement.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong is set to wed her long-term partner Sophie Allouache after years of hard-fought reforms to legalise gay marriage.

The high profile and intensely private Labor frontbencher shares two daughters with Ms Allouache, who she met nearly 18 years ago in 2006.

The celebration of their partnership has thrilled long-term friends and supporters, with the wedding expected to be attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Health Minister Mark Butler and former SA Premier Jay Weatherill.

However, details of the wedding remain a closely-guarded secret with her office refusing to “confirm or deny” the nuptials, after several attendees confirmed the invitations have been sent out.

The wedding marks a celebratory end of a long and sometimes painful journey towards marriage equality and an evolution of Senator Wong’s views on the subject.

Senator Wong famously wept in 2017 when she learned Australians had voted Yes to legalising same-sex marriage, as she was embraced by campaigners and colleagues.

Senator Penny Wong and Sophie Allouache. Picture: Jason Vandepeer

“I hope that everyone in this parliament has heard the resounding voice of the Australian people today, a mandate for change, a mandate for equality,” she said.

“Because it is time.”

“Thank you for standing up for fairness, thank you for standing up for equality.

“Thank you for standing up for our families.”

That same year, she delivered an impassioned speech opposing the same-sex marriage plebiscite as an “expensive stunt”.

“They simply cannot countenance people like me and others being equal – simple as that,” she told parliament.

“I wouldn’t mind so much if you were prepared to speak out on it. If the Prime Minister was prepared to stand up and say ‘that is wrong’.

“Maybe he can stand up for some people who don’t have a voice. Because we know the sort of debate that is already there. Let me say, for many children in same-sex couple families and for many young LGBTI kids, this ain’t a respectful debate already.”

She condemned the Australian Christian Lobby for referring to the children of parents in a same-sex relationship as a “stolen generation”.

“We love our children,’’ she said.

“And I object, as do every person who cares about children, and as do all those couples in this country, same-sex couples who have kids, to be told our children are a stolen generation.

“You talk about unifying moments? It is not a unifying moment. It is exposing our children to that kind of hatred.”

Senator Penny Wong with partner Sophie Allouache at Sydney's Pride March in February. Picture: Facebook/Penny Wong

But just seven years earlier, Senator Wong had sparked controversy when she stuck to the party line and declared she respected Labor’s view of marriage as an institution between a man and a woman.

‘‘On the issue of marriage I think the reality is there is a cultural, religious, historical view around that which we have to respect,” she said.

The remarks sparked a major backlash within the same-sex marriage movement given Senator Wong’s status as a lesbian political leader and role model.

Senator Penny Wong announces the birth of her daughter Hannah, a sister to Alexandra. Everyone is doing well."

But she continued to work for reform behind the scenes. She was again brought to tears by a standing ovation in 2015 after delivering a powerful speech calling on the party to embrace marriage equality in Australia.

Senator Wong first confirmed she was gay in The Advertiser in August, 2002, shortly after she was elected to the Senate.

However, her sexuality had never been a secret to her friends, colleagues and supporters with Senator Wong telling her biographer that given she was never “in the closet” there was no need to “come out”.

“In Labor circles, it is also well known Senator Wong is gay, a fact she would prefer to leave as a private manner. It was not an issue during her preselection to Labor’s highest ranks,’’ the article simply stated.

The couple’s first child, Alexandra, who was given Ms Allouache’s middle name, was born in 2011 at Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Senator Wong declared the birth at the time as a life-changing experience: “She’s wonderful, just wonderful.’’

“Sophie and I are delighted beyond words. Like all new parents know, there’s nothing like this.”

The couple’s second daughter, Hannah, was born in 2015.

“Like all families we had to think about whether we tell the toddler because she’s notorious – she doesn’t know what a secret is,” Senator Wong told The Advertiser.

“But we decided to tell her because we thought it was important that she knew.

“Which was fine except at the Labor convention she sat reading The Gruffalo to a baby over and over again … I came over and asked how it was going and a friend said ‘it’s all really good but she’s just told everyone Mummy’s got a baby in her tummy’.”

Senator Wong is a practising Christian who attends the Pilgrim Uniting Church in Adelaide.

Originally published as SA Labor Senator Penny Wong set to wed partner Sophie Allouache