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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4380 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

although not legally married to the worker. This definition is used to determine who are dependants for the purposes of the act, which is critical to the application of section 77, death benefits. On the death of a worker, the dependants of the worker are entitled to compensation under the act.

It is the government's view that it is discriminatory and completely unjustifiable to exclude from this entitlement the same-sex partner of a worker who has died. The bill amends the act to recognise a same-sex partner of a worker on the same basis as a spouse or de facto spouse.

The bill also amends a number of acts that do currently recognise same sex-partners but which use varying mechanisms to do so. Included in this category, for example, are the Administration and Probate Act 1929 and the Duties Act 1999.

Some of the more significant amendments made by the bill are the amendments to the Discrimination Act 1991 to provide additional protection from discrimination on the grounds of sexuality. The amendments in the bill will make it unlawful to vilify a person on the grounds of sexuality, transexuality or HIV/AIDS status. The bill also creates an offence of serious vilification on the same grounds.

In addition, the bill contains an amendment to the Crimes Act 1900 to address the issue of the availability of the defence of provocation in the case of a non-violent, homosexual advance. The approach taken in the bill to do this is non-discriminatory, in that it is not limited to only a non-violent homosexual advance but to any non-violent sexual advance. The amendment provides that a non-violent sexual advance towards the accused by the deceased is not to be taken by itself to be conduct which could have induced an ordinary person in the position of the accused to have so far lost self-control as to have formed an intent to kill the deceased or to be recklessly indifferent to the probability of causing the deceased's death.

However, such conduct may be taken into account with other conduct of the deceased in deciding whether the act or omission causing death occurred under provocation. This is intended to preserve the availability of provocation where the non-violent sexual advance is an act that follows from a previous history of other provoking conduct. It is not intended to exclude the availability of the defence in cases where, for example, the accused may claim a previous history of violence from the deceased, but the final-straw incident that provoked the accused to kill the deceased consisted only of a non-violent sexual advance.

The bill also repeals sections 18 and 30 of the Public Baths and Public Bathing Act 1956. These sections provide that a person over the age of six may not enter any part of a public bath or public bathing convenience that has been set aside for persons of the opposite sex. While the reason for examining these offence provisions related to how the provisions apply to transgender people, the reason for repealing the offences is simply that they are ineffective and no longer appropriate and the offences intended to be covered are appropriately covered by the Crimes Act.

I have had a number of people write to me-and I am sure many other members of this Assembly will have received similar letters-expressing concern that the government's

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