Page 3576 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2013
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committed Australia to celebrating International Women’s Day with other member nations of the UN. Then under the leadership of Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, Australia became a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1983.
The white Australia policy began to be repealed under the leadership of Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley in 1949. The last remains of the policy were finally repealed in 1973, again under the leadership of Gough Whitlam. More recently, it was the Rudd Labor government who apologised to the Stolen Generation of Indigenous Australians who were removed from their families.
As you can see, Madam Deputy Speaker, the Australian Labor Party has a proud history of standing up for everyone in the community, and this includes homosexuals in Australia. South Australia, under a Labor government, in 1975 became the first state or territory to decriminalise sexual conduct between males. I note that the ACT has been the leader on the recognition of same-sex relationships with the Domestic Relationships Act 1994 being passed under the former Labor Chief Minister Rosemary Follett.
Again in 2006 I was proud to stand in this chamber and vote for both the civil unions and civil partnerships acts—once again a first for any jurisdiction in Australia and legislation which was brought into this place by the Labor Party. Why does the Labor Party stand up for these people? It is because the Labor Party is a progressive party for the whole community, and it is the whole community that we represent.
Gay and lesbian people make up an important part of our society and our workforce. They are our teachers, our bus drivers, our mechanics, our builders and our public servants. It is time that we stood up and said that we value you and your contribution to society by allowing them to recognise their love for their partner. It should be irrelevant that their partner may be the same sex as them. They have love, and love has an integral and special role in our society.
Some opponents of this bill will say that we already have civil partnerships and that should be enough, because they are almost equal. I do not believe that this is the case. We do not say to women, “You are almost paid as much men; so that is good enough.” We do not say to Indigenous youth, “You have almost the same quality of life; so that should be good enough.” We in the Labor Party do not believe in saying, “You are almost equal, so that is good enough.”
This bill is about removing the discrimination which these people face, and while some claim there is no discrimination in the Marriage Act, I believe there is. Allowing discrimination such as this to remain would send a clear message to society that it is okay to treat people differently, to treat them as if they were less than others. By recognising only heterosexual relationships in the civil institution of marriage, we are saying to these couples, “Your relationship and, in turn, you are not as valued a member of society as your heterosexual counterpart.”
Allowing these attitudes to continue allows further discrimination towards these members of society to continue by saying that it is okay to discriminate against them.
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