Five years ago Tom Raue was calling for sex with corpses to be made legal in Australia. The year before that he was allegedly advocating bestiality. Now he’s a Greens candidate in Summer Hill.

The article titled, Drop Dead Gorgeous: Tom Raue Sexes Dead People, appeared in Honi Soit, a student newspaper, in March 2013. In the piece Mr Raue argued, “If a person gives permission for their corpse to be used for sex, and the family has no issue with it, then what’s the harm? F–k it.”

“Necrophilia is one of the most taboo sexualities in almost every society. In Australia it is illegal, and is classified as ‘interfering with a corpse’. Although it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, necrophilia in and of itself is harmless and should be allowed,” he added.

Mr Raue went on to say, “Necrophilia is classified as a paraphilia, meaning that it is a sexuality which deviates from the norm. Homosexuality was once considered a paraphilia, but it was decided that it was close enough to normal sexuality not to be a disorder.

“I don’t think it’s the business of psychologists to define normality and stigmatise behaviours simply because they are unusual.”

Mr Raue has now told Daily Mail Australia he was only joking when he wrote the article, and he has no interest legalising necrophilia. According to the Daily Mail Mr Raue wrote a similar piece in 2012 campaigning to change the law to allow bestiality.

“Yes, most Australians find it disgusting, but that’s not a good enough reason to legislate against it,” the article said.

Of course, that too was just a joke.