Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in opposition to the Marriage Amendment Bill. I want to say at the outset that I have the utmost respect for my colleagues who are in favour of this bill, and my esteem for those in my own party is not diminished in any way because I hold a different view from them. I am pleased to be a member of a political party that accepts that this issue is one that involves deeply held and differing views, and so I will put my view on the record again and I will, when the time comes, exercise my right to a conscience vote.

It is a matter of public record that those opposite do not have the same option but are being silenced and held to a party political view. But this is an issue where genuine beliefs and identity are debated in our democracy, and we will find out as a test of this debate how weak or strong we are as a democratic nation. In a way this debate reveals to us our capacity or our failure to live with the tension of sharing the politics, respectfully acknowledging that there are different views and that each view should be heard.

I start out making that claim because it is too often the case in the debate about same-sex marriage that people who are opposed to it are maligned as homophobic, intolerant, bigoted, brainwashed by religious indoctrination or intellectually inferior to those who support it. I want to put on the record that such a view is of itself intolerant and 'otherphobic'. I want to put on the record how proud I am of our federal party, following the victory of 2007, in undertaking the substantive program of legislative change that saw more than 80 pieces of law amended to give lesbian, gay and transgender individual Australians the same practical rights before the law.

Yet I stand in opposition to this proposed law before the House for a number of reasons. Firstly, regardless of culture, time or place, the organic nature of the family unit that is the natural consequence of the union of a man and a woman is the key social unit on which a stable society is built. Marriage is almost universally viewed as a legal and social event that is life generating and is understood to be much more often than not linked to children. Terri Kelleher from the Australian Family Association cites recent research and argues that:

Although the family takes many forms in contemporary Australian society, it is uncontroversial to insist that the ideal family environment is that in which children are raised by their own mother and father. According to a 2004 study, 73.6% of children under 18 in Australia live with their biological parents in intact families. It is a statistic we expect most Australians would applaud: the more children growing up in such circumstances, the better. The institution of marriage is instrumental in realising this ideal, by binding a man, a woman, and their biological children in a stable family unit.

The Marriage Act defines marriage to mean the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. This is a commonly held position in the broad Australian community. It is a position expressed by our Prime Minister and a position held by many people of many faiths. Many but not all Catholic people like myself and Islamic people, Jewish people, secular humanists and Indigenous families think of marriage in this way. We prize it and we understand it very certainly as a union between a man and a woman. The Chinese Methodist Church in Australia put it this way in their submission to the recent inquiry into this bill:

Marriage is the logical basis of the family … an institution fundamental to the well-being of all of society, not just religious communities.

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The preservation of the unique meaning of marriage is not a special or limited interest but serves the good of all. Therefore, we stand all who are of a kin mind in promoting and protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The Ambrose Centre for Religious Liberty in its recent public submission on the bill cited Frank Furedi in the Australian on 25 and 26 June 2011:

From a sociological perspective, the ascendancy of the campaign for gay marriage provides a fascinating story about the dynamics of the cultural conflicts that prevail in Western society. During the past decade the issue of gay marriage has been transformed into a cultural weapon that explicitly challenges prevailing norms through condemning those who oppose it.

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As a result, it does not simply represent a claim for a right but a demand for the institutionalisation of new moral and cultural values.

This brings me to another reality that needs to be acknowledged: too often it is overstated that the broader community is in favour of legislative change to the current definition of marriage. It is a claim that is made here again today, but it does not reflect the community to which I belong. A cursory view of speeches in this place in response to the call from the member for Melbourne to consult with our communities indicates that there are more elected representatives on the record in this place reflecting a majority community opposition to a change than there are elected representatives conveying community support. In short, community support for a change to the definition of marriage is overstated and community opposition is understated. For these reasons, and for several others that I will not have time to speak on, I oppose the bill.

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