Page 1624 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006

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I believe that the law we debate today will make our community a stronger one, a more thoughtful one, a more respectful one and certainly a fairer one. I said earlier that it was easy for those of us personally unaffected by this law to either magnify or minimise its significance. In fact, none of us is personally untouched by this law because its absence diminishes us all. To that extent, its absence ought to be felt personally and profoundly by each of us, whatever the status of our own relationships or whatever our sexual preferences. While we discriminate needlessly against the man or the woman beside us, we are all diminished.

Alastair Nicholson was right: nothing is more central to our definition of humanity than the respect each of us places upon enduring relationships. Today I hope that the ACT can put on record that its respect and recognition are not based on something so irrelevant to our essential humanity as sexual preference. I commend the Civil Unions Bill to the Assembly.

Question put:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 9

Noes 6

Mr Barr

Mr Hargreaves

Mrs Burke

Mr Stefaniak

Mr Berry

Ms MacDonald

Mrs Dunne

Mr Corbell

Ms Porter

Mr Mulcahy

Dr Foskey

Mr Stanhope

Mr Pratt

Mr Gentleman

Mr Smyth

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Detail stage

Clauses 1 to 4, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 5.

MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (8.50): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 1667]. I table a supplementary explanatory statement to the amendments.

The government is moving a number of amendments in response to concerns raised by the commonwealth. The commonwealth Attorney-General has expressed concerns that the Civil Unions Bill, to use his words, “equates civil unions with marriage and may have the effect of confusing civil unions with marriage”. In particular, the commonwealth Attorney-General has expressed concerns with the general statement concerning the effect of civil unions in clause 5 (2) of the Civil Unions Bill, with clause

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