Page 5294 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 29 November 2017
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same-sex couples in a variety of situations. Most notably for us as ACT residents, Senator Zed Seselja, one of our senators, is now included amongst this group of same-sex marriage opponents who are now seeking to undermine genuine marriage equality laws, desperate to water them down in any way possible.
I invite people who are thinking that way to undertake the thought test which has been suggested to me. Take out the words “gay couple”, “same-sex couple” or whatever you wish to have and substitute, say, “disabled”, “black” or whatever word you might use to describe a subset of human beings, and think, “Would I be happy with that sort of discrimination? Is that what I would like?” Should cake bakers be allowed to say, “I don’t like disabled people, so they can’t get any cakes”? We would not stand for it for one minute—absolutely we would not. There is no other class of human beings that we would even consider legalising discrimination against.
The Australian public has already had to endure the needless and costly non-binding postal survey, which in itself was a tool being used to bow to political pressure by the far right. It was a disrespectful and costly exercise that will have repercussions, largely negative repercussions, for years to come. The damage that the LGBTIQ community has experienced, the harassment, the discrimination and the ostracising that they have experienced will, I fear, have long-term deleterious effects.
It was bad enough that Australian people of all persuasions were asked to cast their views about the equality of a minority of our citizens in this country; it is even worse that the very people on the hill who oppose the legislation of equal marriage are still seeking to undermine this process. The Australian people have spoken. They need to respect that. To now attempt to introduce clauses which legitimise discrimination against this group by not only religious celebrants but also civil celebrants and commercial businesses is belligerent and offensive to the Australian public.
All along, the cry for religious freedom by “no” campaigners was a way of diverting people from the real issue at hand: the issue that two people who love each other, regardless of their gender, can have the same opportunity to publicly acknowledge their love for each other in the form of marriage, an issue that was overwhelmingly supported by Australians and by Canberrans, as was demonstrated by our 74 per cent vote.
I support this motion because, despite the fact that the ACT is a human rights jurisdiction with a Human Rights Act and a strong anti-discrimination regime, and despite the fact that ACT residents overwhelmingly voted in favour of marriage equality, we now face a situation where the federal government might entrench discriminatory practices and impose them on our population. There is a section of the federal parliamentarians, and I fear that our own Liberal senator is part of this, who would like to do this. This is unacceptable.
I am also mindful of the situation of the Andrews bill, where the federal government intervened to stop the Northern Territory from implementing groundbreaking legislation on assisted dying, despite the clear wishes of the people of the Northern Territory and their government at the time. I agree with the comments Mr Barr has made on this subject. It is of course a situation that is very relevant to the ACT and
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