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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 120 ..

The Australian Christian Lobby has come in for a beating tonight. I got the Australian Christian Lobby to come into my office with some of the gay community so that we could sit round and discuss a whole lot of things. Some of it we agreed on and some of it we did not but, as a community, we sat down and did it together.

The people over there point at us and say that we are bigots, that we are all those things that they are afraid of. It is a reflection of them because they cannot look honestly at themselves and ask why or why not. The Chief Minister said, “Have a conscience vote.” Colleagues, you’ve got a conscience vote. Vote according to your conscience. Chief Minister, give your colleagues a conscience vote. You won’t because your party does not like conscience votes. Do not come in here and tell us that the light is shining on the hill and we are a bunch of bigots; look at yourself first.

Mr Speaker, we are charged to discriminate; it is our job. We take circumstances and look at them and, on the basis of the evidence presented to us, we are asked to make decisions, and we should. No-one on that side of the chamber has presented evidence that says that this is the best outcome for the child, yet we are attacked on that and it is said that it is only about the child. Of course it is about the child. We have spent most of the morning and a lot of the afternoon talking about the rights of children and how we look after them.

The data is conflicting. Data has been trotted out by both sides. Our surveys say this—Mrs Dunne referred to a couple of things—and your surveys say that. I am going to put the children at the heart of this matter because the children are the ones that it affects the most, absolutely affects the most, and they are the ones that in the main do not have a voice, they are the ones that do not have a say and they are the ones that we are entrusted with protecting—the most vulnerable. In this case they are children who, for whatever circumstance, have been put up for adoption.

Do not sit there and tell me that I am a bigot, because I am not. I will be out there. I will walk the walk. I will go to all parts of my community and I will talk to them, I will walk with them, I will sit with them and I will have a conversation with them, and at the end of the day I will respect them. I will not always agree with them, but I will be there if they want to talk to me.

Let’s get to the nub of this matter. The nub of it is that we are being asked to remove some legislation that we are told is discriminatory. Yes, it is discriminatory, as is just about every piece of legislation that we pass that is put in favour of one group over another. In the main, let’s face it, most of the legislation this place passes puts one group over another. I have always said that the groups we should legislate to protect are those that we consider the most vulnerable.

Indeed, in the current legislation about adoption there are provisions to protect the children and they are not in any way a slur upon or casting aspersions against the gay community. I look at you and I say that it is not a slur in any way, shape or form. But when children are put up for adoption the agencies have to determine what is the best outcome for them. We have an argument going in our schools about role models for young men. Indeed, the federal Labor leader is talking about having more male role models for young men, for boys, because he is afraid that there is an imbalance,

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