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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 144 ..

I do not believe that the people of Canberra are discriminatory at heart. It is interesting to note that, in both Western Australia and Tasmania, opinion polls on the issue of same-sex law reform were heavily in favour of the reforms once they had occurred. I think that people in Canberra who have had doubts about these reforms will quickly see that their lives will not change. However, life will improve drastically for those people in same-sex relationships and the queer community who can now take advantage of legislative equality.

I want to note that the economic white paper mentioned the fact that Canberra needs to attract and retain talented and creative people in order to maintain its economic advantage. As we have been quoting a lot of research tonight, I quote research that has been done by Richard Florida in the United States that shows that talented and creative people tend to be attracted to areas that have high diversity and tolerance, and that these areas are highly tolerant of gays and lesbians, as well as showing high levels of racial integration and high immigrant populations.

Queer rights are human rights, and we will soon be debating a human rights bill. That bill expressly includes the grounds of sexuality. The real reason we are debating this legislation is not that we are trying to cater to a single group in society, but the opposite: it is that those of us who support human rights in this Assembly believe that all people should be equal before the law. It does not matter if the grounds are race, religion, gender, disability or sexuality; our laws should not discriminate. That is why the Australian Democrats have fought for so many years to remove discrimination from legislation across the country.

I want to relay to the Assembly a story that I heard today. I met a mother who joined us in the gallery and she said to me, “I have two beautiful children. One is a lesbian; one is not. Why does the law treat them differently? Why can’t my children, who live here in the same community, have the laws treat them the same way?” That is what we are trying to do today: to remove this discrimination and to allow families and other people to live without this discrimination forcing them to be second-class citizens.

I am glad to see this debate progress today. I am happy and proud that we are moving on with this second lot of law reform and that the opposition has said that it will support the bill in principle. We will have further debates in the detail stage. However, I do wait for more reforms to take place. We need some real budget initiatives to support this legislative work.

I would again like to thank the staff in the Department of Justice and Community Safety for the work that they have done, the Good Process group for the amazing work that it has done, and members of Canberra’s queer community for their work in identifying the issues, working with the government and members of the Assembly and making this process move forward. I especially thank Llewellyn Reynders, on my staff, for the work that he has put in, not just as a member of my staff, but as a member of the Good Process group.

I would also like to make some observations about the debate we have had today. Back in 1994, the ACT Legislative Assembly passed the Domestic Relationships Act. At the time, it was landmark legislation in recognising the equality of same-sex relationships.

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