Page 1599 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
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Anglican Church and the Australian Christian Lobby oppose this bill, backing the fundamental, unique and traditional institution of marriage, yet wanting to see fairness. They are happy to see a registration scheme very similar to—indeed, lifted from—the Tasmanian legislation; they do not have a problem with that.
The Chief Minister has been quoted as saying:
The intent of the Civil Unions Bill is simple: to remove discrimination against people on the basis of their sexuality. Those who object to this bill should be asked to justify why they believe their fellow human being ought to be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation.
I think the overwhelming majority of Australians who do not support same-sex marriage are certainly against discrimination against a group on the basis of sex. We have passed in this place, over a number of years, laws to remove discrimination. There are some people—we have had a lot of emails, largely from interstate or from people here—who think there should be that form of discrimination. I suppose you never completely remove discrimination anyway. We have had debate about human rights and the need to balance rights, and obviously there is always going to be discrimination. There is discrimination against drink-drivers, discrimination against people who speed. You can say there is discrimination against 17-year-olds, as you have to be 17 to get a formal licence; but obviously some people can drive very well before then. You get the vote at 18; people would say that is discriminatory. Any number of issues in Australia could be described as discriminatory.
I think we all want some form of procedural fairness, so that people actually get a fair go. Whilst you will never get rid of discrimination in Australia on this issue, and I think the vast majority of people would not support what the Chief Minister is doing, most people certainly do not want to see discrimination against a group on the basis of sex. If this Chief Minister wants to do something, why doesn’t he follow the model of the register of relationships, which has been successfully adopted in Tasmania? That was groundbreaking stuff at the time. There was an article in the Canberra Times yesterday, with some interesting hypotheses, indicating that this is more than a debate about marriage.
My bill largely does relate to the Tasmanian scheme, which was welcomed by the same-sex community in that state and also accepted by the overwhelming majority of people. My bill does two things: it introduces a registration scheme where persons living together in a heterosexual or same-sex relationship can apply to the registrar-general to have their relationship registered, and of course financial and other benefits flow from that. My bill would also enable people in a caring relationship to register. That is something that is often forgotten. There are some very positive steps in the Tasmanian scheme that do not just apply to people in a sexual relationship; they apply to people in a caring relationship as well. That would enable benefits to flow to people who support each other in a caring, non-sexual relationship.
An example of that, of course, could be two family members or two old friends who are single, who depend on each other and who share the same accommodation. Why shouldn’t they receive some benefits as well? It is a unique scheme in its way. It is groundbreaking, but it does not have the same problems Mr Stanhope’s scheme has. The
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