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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 109 ..

MS TUCKER (8.27): The Greens will be supporting this bill. It really does something quite simple. It recognises in law the reality of parenting and families, as far as it recognises the existence of families parented by people with gay, lesbian and bisexual sexualities. This is something which is worthwhile and which the Greens are happy—it will be no surprise—to support. The strength of reaction by a sector of the community against this bill is quite surprising. The basic claim being made by the group called the Australian Christian Lobby who are organising the response is that they see this as a matter of the rights of the child. They say that they are not homophobic. They are now not saying that it is wrong to have a sexuality other than heterosexuality, which is certainly an improvement, but claim only to be concerned about the child’s interest.

This is an interesting discussion. It is another where there are studies claiming to show opposite things. If one is going to get into the study, one needs to get into the research methodology, data strength and population and also into the question of what one is asking and why. A review of studies by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library in 2002 considered all the studies done on the children of lesbian parents. There is still not a large set of data, but the conclusion to this review was:

None of the evidence above serves to denigrate the contribution to good father parenting. It does indicate though that it is the good parenting rather than the father parenting that is relevant.

The paper goes on to say:

Developmental research consistently reports that it is the quality of the family processes rather than the nature of family structure, for example, single, same sex or heterosexual couple parents, that is most important to the adjustment of the child.

In some places it may be socially difficult to be the child of a same-sex couple but it is also still socially difficult to be the child of parents who do not speak English at home. It is difficult if one’s family is living in poverty, if one’s family is Aboriginal or if one’s parents are blind. Do we suggest that this gives us some right or obligation to split families up or not to recognise their relationship in all the ways that recognise the particular responsibilities that parents have?

Are we saying that wherever there is in our society a stigma, a dogmatic response, an intolerance or a judgment which is not favourable, we therefore say those people do not have the right to have children? Indeed, the package of law reform of which these bills are a part can only serve to make living as a same-sex couple easier by removing many of the discriminatory presumptions and barriers.

I will not go into the details of the other bill at this stage except to note that these steps towards removing discrimination, along with the gradual acceptance and recognition—hard won—must make living as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex person easier. If there are risks to health and to relationships in the queer community, then removing these very real daily barriers must make things easier. Consider the kind of language that we have heard today from members of the opposition, the comments that Mrs Dunne made and the generalisations she made about gay men. One wonders how she can say she is worried that children of same-sex couples are going to have a hard

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