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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (13 March) . . Page.. 1067 ..
MR STANHOPE
(continuing):legislating for it. You are legislating for a circumstance in which no couples, whether they be same-sex couples or opposite-sex couples, ever have to live together.
I understand your arguments and I do not dispute them. I accept what we as a society have done to gay and lesbian people, the trauma and pain we have caused them and the suffering that is expressed in their capacity to enjoy their relationships, but I am not prepared today to walk out of here and say, "Guess what, the ACT parliament today legislated that you don't ever have to live with somebody and we will still regard you as a bona fide partner living in a bona fide domestic relationship."I just think that that is too great an extension. If you want to get out there and argue it, argue it in the next round, but I do not think that it is appropriate today.
MS DUNDAS
(5.13): I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of those comments by the Attorney-General. This amendment is, as has been said, groundbreaking. I see that as a positive thing, that we are taking, if accepted, a positive step forward to recognise the reality that exists in our community.I was disappointed to hear the Chief Minister start running the line the Liberals were running on Tuesday that we have not had enough public consultation on this amendment. I can assure you that I did not pull this amendment out of thin air. There was a series of consultations through my office about this legislation, and about this amendment specifically, and it was put to me by a number of people that it was an important step forward in the recognising of their situation.
The Chief Minister has said that this matter has never been an issue in the courts. Perhaps that is true; I do not doubt the hard-working people in JACS. But I pose the question: why has it never been an issue in the courts? Is it because people who were too afraid or unable to live together were then too afraid to take their case to court because of the persecution that so many in our community have suffered over the years?
I do understand that this amendment is not going to be successful today, but I do hope that it will form part of the ongoing reforms that have been flagged through the government's discussion papers and that we will, as members of this Assembly, recognise that we do live as part of an incredibly diverse population and that we should not be constraining our legal definitions in this way.
As I said earlier, married people do not have to live together-they are married. But we do need to recognise that there are many situations in which, to all intents and purposes, the legislation could apply to people in our community-their degree of mutual commitment to a shared life; their reputation and public aspects of their relationship; whether or not they are having sex; whether or not there is financial interdependence between them-but they are not living together because of societal attitudes about the nature of their relationship.
As I have said again and again, we need to reform our legislation, but we also need to look at how we make this situation a reality in our society. This is the first step and we still have a number of steps to go. I do hope that it will be considered as part of the ongoing legislative reform to remove discrimination.
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