Page 5735 - Week 15 - Thursday, 10 December 2009
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government, through the Attorney-General, gave a shoddy and dishonest reason for proposing these amendments to the ACT legislature. I can today only speak to reasons outlined in a letter to me from the Attorney-General that I received two days ago. That letter speaks to the commonwealth’s desire for a nationally consistent framework on the regulation of civil partnerships through registration.
The intent here is to bring the ACT more into line with Tasmania and Victoria. But this is utter rubbish. The federal government do not have a nationally consistent framework on civil partnerships and they certainly do not have the support of state and territory governments to develop one as yet. What the federal ALP has is a national platform, but that is party policy—party policy of the Labor Party—not a COAG agreement between the state and territory governments. COAG is a negotiation between governments, not between branches of the Labor Party. So that, I am afraid, is a fraudulent reason from Mr McClelland, and I suspect he knows it.
The federal government raised no concerns about our legislation in regard to its legal standing or its potentially infringing on the federal Marriage Act. I suspect that is because they know they have not got a leg to stand on, and legal advice from one of their own solicitors indicates as such. The commonwealth quite explicitly gave up the field on legislating for same-sex relationships when it amended the Marriage Act in 2004.
So it does rather leave one scratching one’s head searching for a reason, a policy reason or a legal reason—unless, of course, it is because of a moral reason; unless, of course, it is because the Prime Minister has decided that it is worth trying to change our laws to pacify conservatively held views in other parts of the Australian community; views that are intolerant of diversity, intolerant of human rights; views held by people who appear to be believe that the relationships of same-sex couples are second rate and not worthy of ceremonial creation or celebration. But those are not the views of the Greens nor, in my view, of decent-minded Australians.
Unfortunately, in their actions the commonwealth are not only engaging in a less than frank manner with the ACT Legislative Assembly; they are also sanctioning an overriding of the values of democracy. Let us face it: we are not here today because of any push from the ACT community; we are here debating this bill today purely because Kevin Rudd has decided that he does not like our laws. Once again, he has confirmed his position of discrimination against same-sex couples and their relationships and he has confirmed his disrespect for the ACT parliament.
The second reason I believe the federal government have behaved poorly is with their refusal to play their hand in this debate. The bill on the table today is effectively one that had come about as a result of a deal done behind closed doors between the federal Labor government and our own ACT Labor government. This is a deal where basically the federal ALP said to their colleagues in the ACT: “Guys, go back and fix this, or else. Do this for us, and we will leave you alone.” It was not a deal that had any openness or any honesty attached to it. It is a deal that, frankly, lets the federal ALP government off the hook as they have not had to play their hand on this issue. They have not declared either their reasons for these amendments or whether or not they would have actually vetoed the laws.
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