Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise as the seconder to support the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill 2015 and to talk about how we are going to win marriage equality. I am grateful to the mover, the member for Leichhardt, and the co-sponsors, the members for Werriwa, Brisbane—who is here today—Melbourne, Indi, and Denison for the opportunity to second the bill. I believe that marriage equality can and will be won. We are going to win by having the better of the argument because we are on the side calling for equality before the law. We are not going to be defeated by appeals to tradition, because marriage has never been set in stone and because all children and families deserve to feel equally valued. We are going to keep working until this parliament changes the law to make marriage equality a modern Australian reality.

Equality before the law is not a trivial matter that can be brushed aside to allow for old prejudices to be maintained. The right to be free from discrimination is included in article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees equality before the law. The Australian Human Rights Commission considers that the fundamental human rights principle of equality means that civil marriage should be available without discrimination to all couples, regardless of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. I respectfully agree. Marriage is not frozen in time. As the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court stated, it is circular reasoning, not analysis, to maintain that marriage must remain a heterosexual institution because that it what it historically has been. It is not even the case that marriage has always been available to people of opposite sex regardless of their own characteristics and attributes. Nowadays Protestants can marry Catholics but that was not always the case. First Nations people can marry without permission but, as Steven Oliver has pointed out, referring to his own grandparents, that was not always so. Persons of different races can marry. That was not always so. Marriage has changed, and so have families. The law, always a laggard, should change too.

This parliament should and ultimately, I think, will change the law. The High Court has made clear that this parliament already has the power to legislate for marriage equality. Suggestions of a plebiscite or a referendum are intended to obstruct. The Prime Minister in supporting such ideas is not doing so because he wants marriage equality. To the contrary, he has reportedly said he will use tricky processes to block it. We are here to legislate. Let us do so. We should no more abdicate our responsibility by outsourcing this decision than we should in respect of any other. I know that this bill might not be given the treatment it deserves in this parliament, but this cause, the cause of marriage equality, will receive the treatment it deserves when we ultimately win. We in this place have an opportunity to do something good—something transformative for people's lives that does not cost a cent. It not an opportunity that you get very often. We have the opportunity to open up to more people the sort of joy and pride that we witnessed this year in Ireland and in the United States, if only we have the courage to consider all relationships as being equal.

I acknowledge the work that Australian Marriage Equality and PFLAG have done. I thank Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek for their leadership on marriage equality, along with many other members and senators, especially Senator Wong, whose support for equality is well known. I acknowledge those in political parties like Rainbow Labor, like LNProud, like the New South Wales Young Nationals, along with the many individual members who have advocated for marriage equality, along with the political and parliamentary staff who have worked on this bill. I thank every Australian who has contacted my office to advocate for, and against, marriage equality respectfully. I have to say that not all of the emails I have received have been respectful, but most of them have been. I thank everyone who has told me their personal stories. I recently received a beautiful wedding photo from a woman who had married her partner at the time, briefly, when marriage equality was lawful in the ACT. It was a beautiful picture and she wrote to me to say 'thank you for continuing to advocate for marriage equality' and she hopes that one day soon marriage equality will be a reality for her and her partner as well. I have had people from all walks of life in very unexpected places, including when I have travelled overseas, stop me to say, 'I'm really glad that people are working for marriage equality and that they are doing it in such a bipartisan fashion'.

So, for everyone who might be feeling a bit disappointed about the fact this bill is not presently listed for a vote, or about the messages being sent by the Prime Minister, I want you to know that we are on the right side of the argument. We are standing up for couples, families and kids and we know this parliament has the power to legislate. Those of us who are advocating for marriage equality should telephone our federal representatives and ask them to allow this bill to come on for further debate and for a vote. Together we can make marriage equality a reality.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill, which allows any two people to marry and have their marriage recognised regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. At its heart this bill is all about removing discrimination and prejudice from what is fundamentally a personal decision that each and every one of us is entitled to make—it is our own freedom of choice as to who we choose to love for the rest of our lives. As I have said many times, the decision is not one any government is entitled to make and it is not a decision that should be permitted to set one section of our society against another.

To those who oppose this bill or in some way are threatened by this, I say marriage is not a statement of moral superiority. Marriage is a simple statement of love and commitment. When did we forget that? With that in mind, who are any of us to prevent the expression of that love based upon a person's sexuality. Because this bill is focused on removing discrimination, it also provides absolute protection of religious freedoms because you cannot replace one form of prejudice and discrimination with another. The bill does not compel ministers of religion or chaplains to undertake same sex marriages where to do so would contravene the tenets of their faith and it is consistent with antidiscrimination laws that have been in existence in this country for decades. It will not permit discrimination in the provision of goods and services to same sex couples seeking to get married. For all those people who cite the US examples of the so-called religious dilemma facing florists and cake providers for same sex couples wanting to get married, the refusal of those goods and services on the basis of a person's sexuality is already unlawful. This bill will not permit us to wind back the progress that, thankfully, we have made in becoming a much more tolerant and inclusive society.

My view is that on this issue party political positions should be abandoned in favour of what each person's conscience tells them. For me, as a Liberal member of parliament, that would be democracy in its purest form. As such, this bill's unique status as having cross party support is particularly significant. Each cosponsor of this bill has set aside their particular party political alliances and has acted in accordance with their conscience in keeping the majority view of their constituents. This is how democracy is supposed to work and regrettably it is too rare. To all of my fellow cosponsors, especially the member for Leichhardt, the Hon. Warren Entsch, who led us in bringing the bill to the House, I want to say thank you. Being able to work with you all in bringing this bill before the parliament has been a great honour and it is also my privilege to be speaking in this chamber today with the member for Griffith. I also want to thank my chief of staff, John Lamont, for his technical legal expertise in drafting the bill and the accompanying explanatory memorandum and statement of compatibility and all of the parliamentary staff who have worked with this bill. It has been a great privilege for my office to have drafted this bill.

As people we are all of us much more than our sexuality, in the same way that we are much more than our racial origins or any disability that we might have. Our worth, as people, is in no way diminished by any of these characteristics, none of which should be allowed to serve as a disqualifier to all of us enjoying rights so fundamental and basic as our choice on who we love.

It is in the nature of human experience that views change over time. Once upon a time, society did not permit people of different races to marry, women were treated as property and the earth was thought to be flat. Thankfully, we have evolved. Given that, for all of us, our time on earth is too short, why would any one of us seek to deny another the chance to experience love in their lifetime? It is a ridiculous proposition to contend that a gay person needs love to any lesser degree than I do. This is not a politician's response; I would like to think of it as a human response. And so many people have said before me that, if there was just a little bit more love in the world, it would be a better place for all this.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:26 to 16:00