Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I won't be supporting these amendments. The Greens won't be supporting these amendments. I have set out the reasons why and, can I just say, I can't wait until my beautiful, happy, light and ethereal friends have exactly the same rights as I do. If the member for Kennedy and anyone else wants to know why we're having this debate, it is because for a very, very long time our law has entrenched discrimination. And I am so, so happy that we are standing on the precipice of removing it.

I just want to reassure the member for Kennedy: when we legalise equal marriage in this country, it won't be compulsory, Bob. What it will mean is that everyone in this country enjoys the same rights as the person who lives next door to them, the person that they work with and the person in their family. That is going to be a wonderful moment, and no amount of contributions or bigotry or hatred is going to take that away from us in a very, very short period of time.

On these amendments, can I say, we didn't have to have and we shouldn't have had the plebiscite, but when we did, Australian people voted very, very clearly to remove discrimination from our laws. What these amendments will do is increase discrimination in our laws, and for that very simple reason alone they cannot be supported. Let's get on with making equality a reality.

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