Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

This Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 is very simple. It is about two things. It is about love and equality, and I'm a champion of both. I have the great joy of being a happily married woman, and that is a right, a joy and a comfort that I do not believe should be denied to any adult. I know there have been some quite prescriptive views detailed in this chamber on what defines marriage. What I know about marriage is that it's about two people forsaking all others. It's about good times; it's about hard times and it's about forgiveness. It is intensely personal and it's about finding a person who loves you for your faults as much as your merits. And I know what it is not: it is not purely about the creation of children. To say that marriage is for the purpose of bearing children, that that's the primary focus of marriage, I believe diminishes marriage. I, and many other married couples, do not have biological children with my spouse. Our marriage is no less because of this fact. Marriage is entirely about the deep commitment two people have for each other and for that commitment to be recognised in law. It is about love, for love is love.

I want to read out in the chamber one of the most poignant love stories shared with me during this debate. I received, as all of us did, so many letters about long-lasting commitment during this process. But this one more than any other has drifted into my mind over and over again. Dawn Cohen, from New South Wales, has given me her permission to tell her and Robin's love story:

Dear Rebekha

We have been engaged for 34 years. Robin's parents have died while we have been waiting for the wedding. My father is now 90.

Please please do all you can to give us marriage equality by Christmas. Our love has been my deepest teacher and my greatest joy. We have been there for each other in sickness and health. We have been attacked for being gay, but not for one second has our love wavered. Nothing will separate us until death do us part.

This woman who has loved me so deeply and for so long, that eyes closed she knows what I am feeling from the sound of my tread on the stairs. And cares. Who else could she possibly be, this sun around whom I revolve, this moon that revolves around me: my deepest beloved, my wife.

After 35 years, we have surely earned the certificate that heterosexual couples can get before they even start the course.

Dawn and Robin, I am so sorry we have taken so long in this place to legislate, recognise and value your marriage. I am also sorry for the deeply hurtful comments that the LGBTIQ community had to hear and billboards that you had to see. It was unkind, it was untrue and it was unnecessary. I do hope, this week, we can in this place go some way to right those wrongs.

While I believe the parliament should have legislated in relation to marriage equality without a plebiscite or a postal survey, I was heartened by the turnout and vote in Mayo. In my electorate, 88,608 people—that is, 83.8 per cent of my constituents—returned their postal surveys. This was significantly above the average Australian response rate of 79.5 per cent. I'm pleased to say that 64.7 per cent responded in favour of marriage equality, above the national average of 61.6 per cent. The participation in the postal survey mobilised many in my community to enrol to vote, and particularly young people to engage. The electorate of Mayo recorded a 573 per cent increase in voter enrolments in August, including a 1,258 per cent boost in the number of people enrolling for the first time. In total, we received 2,827 enrolments, of which 910 were first-timers, and, of those enrolling for the first time, the average age was 20 years. According to the Australian Electoral Commission, more than 98,000 people were added to the roll in August, of which 65,000 were electors aged 18 to 24 years. More than any other issue in the last decade or two, this issue has engaged young people to participate and, I believe, will ensure young people have a greater role in determining the issues that matter, the issues that are campaigned on at election time and who is elected to this place in the future.

I, along with the significant majority of my constituents, supported this bill to amend the Marriage Act to allow all couples to marry. This bill will remove a major remaining impediment to antidiscrimination from Australian law, treating Australians the same regardless of their gender or their sexuality. I want to reassure religious Australians that this bill will not take away the religious freedoms enjoyed by Australians. The bill will allow religious ministers and current civil celebrants who register as religious celebrants the right to refuse to marry couples if it runs contrary to their religious beliefs. Separate to this legislation, parents will continue to have the right to opt out of any sex education provided in schools, should they so choose, and religious schools will continue to be able to teach views on marriage and sexual relations that accord with their religious beliefs. I believe the campaign by some opponents of marriage equality was false and misleading in relation to the Safe Schools program. Let me be clear: in order for the Safe Schools program to operate in a school, the parent body of the school must agree to the program and, further, each parent of a student in that school has the right to decide if their child participates in the program.

Few human rights are enshrined within the Australian Constitution, but I take heart from the fact that religious freedom is one of those. Section 116 of the Constitution requires that the Commonwealth not legislate in respect of religion. I quote section 116:

The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

I reassure all Australians that religious freedoms are and will continue to be safe in Australia. That is what the bill in its current form, as transmitted from the Senate, provides for, and I do not believe that any amendments to this bill should be made in this chamber.

It is important to remember that, while we enshrine freedom of religion, we also need freedom from religion. We live in a secular society, and so it is important that those who do not follow a religion do not have their rights impinged by others either. I would also like to allay the fear of the 'no' voters with the words of New Zealand's former Prime Minister Bill English. Marriage equality has been legal in New Zealand since 2012, but the Hon. Bill English originally voted against marriage equality in the New Zealand parliament. In December last year he said:

I'd probably vote differently now on the gay marriage issue. I don't think that gay marriage is a threat to anyone else's marriage.

Asked why he'd changed his view, he stated:

Just seeing the impact it has had for couples and the fact that it doesn't erode marriage.

So, this week, Australia will finally join Argentina, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United States, Uruguay, parts of Mexico, and the United Kingdom. We will have marriage equality, as we should.

I'd like to finish with a quote from Maya Angelou:

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

I wish every couple taking their vows following the passing of this legislation a long and happy marriage. Thank you.

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