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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 116 ..

proven wrong ultimately. The fact is that most people here do not believe that this type of thing is important.

Mr Stanhope: What type of thing?

MR CORNWELL: We talked earlier tonight about the fact that you cannot adopt without the consent of various people. What is it—two adoptions a year in the ACT? I do not believe this whole question is an issue, and I cannot understand why you are bothering with it and why you do not let people get on with their lives. It is typical of the Labor Party that they wish constantly to interfere and control.

You are supported by the Greens and you are supported by the Democrats. Ms Tucker talks about responsibility. The way you people wish to conduct life in this territory is that people are responsible for nothing. It is always somebody else’s responsibility. This is why you insist on bringing on more and more legislation, most of which, including this, will be totally unenforceable. It simply will not work.

It is good tokenistic behaviour and you apparently believe that this is going to win you some votes somewhere along the line. I think you are sadly wrong. We, of course, will not be successful in this matter tonight but, as far as I am concerned, you have once again lost sight of what is important for the majority of people in this territory. I would strongly urge you to get back to good governance in this city.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, and Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming) (8.59): Mr Speaker, I would like to pick up on the theme of kids being teased in the schoolyard because they come from a different family structure. They would be teased by that lot. If you recognise that kids would be teased or bullied, which is what teasing boils down to, because there is some difference, whether it be in the structure of their family or any other particular difference that is perceived in relation to them, your efforts, if you were responsible, would be to address the problem.

I have to say that during this debate you, by your attitudes, have identified the problem. The society in which I want to live is a tolerant society. This society is a fairly tolerant society, but it has been through change—change that has passed some by—in my lifetime. Some of the attitudes that have been propounded in this chamber today smack of those attitudes that needed to be changed 40 or 50 years ago.

We have heard tonight some appalling references to stereotypes—that if you happen to be homosexual, you are probably drugged, diseased and half-crazy. I can tell you, without identifying individuals, that there are many people in this society that live in dysfunctional family units, dysfunctional in one way or another. If those units are dysfunctional, it is our duty to try to assist those people, not to marginalise those people. But that is not what we have seen by the continued reference to stereotypes and, secondly, the continued arrogance of the people opposite in saying, “This is the proper way to bring up children. This is the appropriate way to bring up children. These are fundamental principles.”

Nobody put forward any empirical or logical evidence. What you did was you put forward a right wing values set and said that it was the only set to live by; therefore,

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