Page 1630 - Week 05 - Thursday, 11 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
18. For these reasons, our opinion is that ss5(2) and 19 of the Bill are rendered inoperative under s109 of the Constitution due to the inconsistencies of these provisions with ss5(1) and 88EA of the Marriage Act.
That is by Professor Patrick Parkinson, faculty of law, University of Sydney, and Associate Professor Tom Altobelli, school of law, University of Western Sydney, solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and High Court of Australia. Whilst that advice is dated 4 April and is on the substantive bill, the note I have here, which I will read again, is, in relation to this particular clause:
This is a transparent and unsuccessful attempt to get around the problems that have been identified about the inconsistencies with the Commonwealth Marriage Act as raised by myself and Professor Patrick Parkinson. Please refer to the attached document.
For the benefit of members, I seek leave to table that initial advice, if anyone wants to have a look at it.
Leave granted.
MR STEFANIAK: I table the following document:
Civil Unions Bill 2006—Advice received from Professor Parkinson, University of Sydney and Associate Professor Tom Altobelli, University of Western Sydney, dated 4 April 2006.
MR STEFANIAK: I table that advice. So, Mr Speaker, it would seem that the proposed amendment does not get around the problem with clause 5 (2) or, I imagine, with a lot of the other clauses that flow from it. The government is hell-bent on getting through this legislation regardless of potential problems, and I suppose we will not know the outcome until someone tests the legislation or until the federal parliament does something different. But I point out that particular advice; I point out some of the problems.
I am not an expert like those learned professors, but to my relatively untrained eye, even though the government seems to be attempting to get around the problems with the federal constitution, we still have a problem. The amendment states:
(2) A civil union is different to a marriage but is to be treated for all purposes under territory law in the same way as marriage.
As the two learned lawyers point out, it is a transparent and unsuccessful attempt to get around the problems. One can see the validity of their opinion. It seems that this amendment will not necessarily help the attorney. Given that we seem to be getting around the problem with the initial bill, we will let this one go through on the voices. I see what the attorney is doing, but I do not think he will succeed. There will be exactly the same problem with the legislation.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (9.09): The advice tabled by the shadow Attorney-General certainly sounds interesting, and the government will look more
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .