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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 851 ..

Community Safety, and indeed by the responsible project officers-Bronwyn Leslie and Francis Brown.

Once we are through this legislative phase, Bronwyn and Francis will develop a government response to issues raised in the consultation on the issues paper. Our expectation that the paper will be available by May has been indicated. I will table it in this place, and it will be a further focus on the issues yet to be dealt with through this law reform process. At this stage, as I have pointed out, the government has not committed to a position on the other range of issues.

As I say, the Legislation (Gay, Lesbian and Transgender) Amendment Bill is the first stage of a law reform process to address discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity in the ACT. It contains the more straightforward amendments. The purpose of the bill is to include definitions of domestic partner, domestic partnership, and transgender person in the Legislation Act 2001. These definitions will then be used consistently across all ACT legislation, except in rare instances where there is a special need to distinguish between different types of relationships.

The schedule to the bill makes a number of changes to various acts and regulations, to apply these consistent definitions. The provisions amended by the schedule are the straightforward matters. The more complex matters will, as I have just explained, be addressed at a later stage.

While the amendments made by the Legislation (Gay, Lesbian and Transgender) Amendment Bill were not specifically raised in the issues paper, I have received a considerable amount of correspondence about the introduction of the term domestic partner and domestic partnership. In other words, many people have taken the opportunity to address the issues contained in the bill we are debating today.

There has been considerable community interest in and response to the issues, including the issue around the introduction of terms domestic partner and domestic partnership. I make the point though, as Mr Corbell did also, that somewhere between 300 and 400 people have taken the opportunity to comment not just on the range of issues raised in the issues paper, but indeed on the legislation we are currently debating. Between 300 and 400 groups and individuals took the trouble-made the effort-to make their views known on these issues.

Many people have expressed concern that the use of the inclusive term domestic partner will somehow mean that we will no longer talk about husband and wife, or spouse, and that marriage as a legal and social concept will be swept aside. That is not the case. What we are doing is introducing a term that is inclusive of all kinds of domestic partnerships, where two people have made a commitment to each other to share a life.

This new term has the advantage of not being tied to concepts of marriage, with its implication that one of the people in the partnership will be a man and the other a woman. Unlike the approach taken in some similar legislation, such as the New South Wales Miscellaneous Acts Amendment (Relationships) Act 2002, we are not redefining spouse to include de facto and same-sex relationships. Instead, these new definitions take a different approach, to avoid the artificial stretching of the meaning of spouse-in effect

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