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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 139 ..

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to.

Privileges—Select Committee

Membership

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Speaker has been notified in writing of the following nominations for membership of the Select Committee on Privileges 2004: Ms MacDonald, Ms Tucker and Mr Cornwell.

Motion (by Mr Wood) agreed to:

That the Members so nominated be appointed as members of the Select Committee on Privileges 2004.

Sexuality Discrimination Legislation Amendment Bill 2003

Debate resumed from 20 November 2003, on motion by Mr Stanhope:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

MR STEFANIAK (10.35): Mr Speaker, I will be a little bit briefer than I was with the last bill. I think it would be sensible. This bill amends some 26 acts. In some respects it is not very dissimilar from one or two of the bills that the government brought in in the past, about 12 months ago. No-one has any problems with it. Indeed, Mr Jim Wallace—and I acknowledge his presence in the gallery this evening and his very sensible contribution to this debate—and a lot of other people, his colleagues, made a specific point that, in the previous round of negotiations and talks, they were quite comfortable with a lot of what was done.

So there is a lot of bipartisan support here, even in the various groups who passionately believe one way or the other about issues such as this. I think that speaks volumes for what a mature community this is and what a mature community we are. It also indicates that, where there are differences, we really do need to give those a lot of consideration.

Mr Speaker, this bill does a number of things. I am not going to regurgitate what the Chief Minister has said. In many instances, it simply makes changes to bring legislation into line with legislation the government passed earlier regarding domestic partnerships. The opposition had a debate at that time. We were very concerned about removing the

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