Page 1617 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (8.14): I rise in opposition to the government’s bill, to the Chief Minister’s bill, tonight for a variety of reasons which I hope that I will be able to put forward in the next 15 minutes. I will start by touching briefly on Mr Barr’s heartfelt plea for the rule of democracy in the ACT. For the most part, I agree with Mr Barr and the attorney that we have to remember that we are a self-governing polity, but we are at the same time a creature of the commonwealth parliament—there is no denying that—and, while we are in search of democracy here, it has to be done through the prism of the commonwealth constitution.
This is a matter that, as people would expect, has been closely discussed by the Liberal opposition, has been mulled over, and we have come to a very considered position. It is not usual for an opposition to put forward an entirely separate regime as an alternative, but there were many people who thought that there was much that needed to be done symbolically to address some of the issues of discrimination. I will touch on discrimination later. We came to the position in the opposition where it was a matter of making a stand and saying that we are opposed to inappropriate discrimination and that we should make that perfectly clear, which is why we have come up with the relationships registration model which receives considerable support in many other jurisdictions and has been working for some time in Tasmania.
I am concerned about this debate because there has been a lot of talk here tonight about symbolism. I think that we need to be careful that we do not let our desire for symbolic gestures run away with good law making and good policy making generally. I would like to touch on why we should oppose the Civil Unions Bill because it is bad law and then move on to the some of the more in-principle issues.
There are lots of novelties and idiosyncrasies in the bill and they fall into two categories. The first is composed of the differences that flow from the bill’s alteration of the state of the law that currently applies in the Marriage Act, where at least one of the spouses must be 18 years of age or older. The second category is made up of effects resulting from the potentially faster or different accrual of rights by certain persons through civil unions.
Mrs Burke dwelt somewhat on the role of minors. It is a matter of considerable concern. I am concerned about it as a parent because of the educative power of the law. For the most part, as parents, we do not encourage our children to engage in sexual acts and to commit themselves to sexual relationships at a very young age. It might have been the case in other times, but we have a better understanding of human psychology and human physiology. You might be sexually mature physically, but not necessarily psychologically. I think that there is a problem in our affording rights to young people through this law which in the normal course of events, as parents, we would not actually advocate for our own children.
But there are two things here. Two minors can contract a civil union, with certain provisos, but they will lack certain rights and capacities that would normally be regarded as incidents of marriage. One of the examples is that part 14A of the Conveyancing Act says that a child can only be a beneficiary under a trust for real property, not its legal owner. Thus the bill allows for a situation in which those in what is supposed to be something legally equivalent to marriage would not, between them, have the capacity to buy or sell real estate.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .