Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senators Ludwig and Stott Despoja, move:

That the instrument made by the Governor-General on 13 June 2006 under subsection 35(2) of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act 1988, disallowing the Civil Unions Act 2006 (ACT), be disallowed.

I am pleased to be moving this motion to disallow the federal government’s intervention in the ACT Civil Unions Act and to be doing so on behalf of all the opposition parties in the Senate. Unfortunately, there are not a large number of debates in the Senate in which parliamentarians have the opportunity to truly engage with an issue and argue from the bottom of their hearts about something that means something very significant to them. For me, this is one such debate, as it was last year when we debated in the parliament the ban on same-sex marriages.

One of the things that I think helps parliamentarians to be able to engage with these sorts of issues is when they know people who are directly impacted by the legislation. That was the case for me last year, and it is the case for me again today. I spoke last night to a friend of mine, Hannah. She sent me a copy of an email that she had sent to a number of parliamentarians, and I will share that email with the Senate. She wrote:

My partner and I had been planning to celebrate our union with a civil union in Canberra in September this year. Unfortunately, all the plans are now on hold again.

This is something we and our families have been looking forward to since we announced our intentions at Christmas last year. My partner’s children, who live with us and see their dad every weekend, have been especially excited and have been asking whether they are allowed to call my parents their “step-granddad” and “step-grandma” yet. For them, seeing their mum and I enter into a civil union in front of family and friends helps send the message that I am committed to being their stepmum, that we are family, and that we are together for the long haul. I want to do everything I can to provide a secure and nurturing home environment for my partner’s children.

Whatever happens regarding the ACT Civil Unions Act, we are going to have a ceremony and celebration anyway, however, it is very hurtful that the Federal Government is now going out of its way to dismantle the closest thing we have to relationship equality in Australia. I don’t want to have a big political debate, I just want to do the very best I can to be a good partner and a good stepparent, and for my stepdaughters to be able to say “that’s my stepmum” at school without sparking a Daily Telegraph front page.

Hannah told me last night about how her partner’s excited children had been planning what they were going to wear to the civil union ceremony. She told me about explaining to her partner’s 12-year-old daughter that John Howard was going to try to stop them from being able to have their ceremony in Canberra. The 12-year-old said, ‘It’s none of his business and it is not up to him who can fall in love.’ I reckon that 12-year-old has a better handle on what this debate is about than a lot of parliamentarians do. She understands that this debate is about love. It is about who can love each other and who can have their relationships recognised. The Greens are proud to say that all love is equal and that every Australian has the right to have their relationship recognised before the law.

Yesterday morning, Senator Bob Brown and I were very briefly introduced to two young men from Canberra who want to have their civil union relationship recognised. They could not understand how their love for each other could possibly threaten the love that other Australians have for their partners all around Australia. And that was a sentiment expressed by a letter writer in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday. He wrote:

On Monday morning my partner and I went to work, then met some friends to see a movie, ate Thai takeaway while watching Enough Rope, then went to bed. On Tuesday we went to work, met some other friends for dinner, drank a bit too much red wine, then went to bed. On Wednesday morning, work again and tonight we’ll probably just watch a bit of tele.

In those three days George Bush, John Howard, Philip Ruddock and the Vatican all announced that recognition of our relationship was a threat to heterosexual marriage and the family itself. And here we were thinking we were just living our lives.

Apologies to those whose marriages and families were destroyed as a result of our actions. We will try to be more careful in the future.

It is sad that we are having this debate here today and, as I say, it is the second time since I have been in parliament that we have seen the government go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that same-sex couples remain second-class citizens in their eyes. I hope that we do not have in the debate here in the Senate some of the same archaic attitudes that we heard during the debate on banning same-sex marriage last year.

Perhaps I should not have been quite so astounded to hear views in parliament that were so out of touch with sentiment in the Australian community when we had that debate last year, but I was genuinely astounded at how out of touch some of the attitudes expressed in the debate last year were. I felt as though I had stepped back into the Dark Ages when I heard some of the arguments being put forward by parliamentarians.

Now we face the extraordinary spectacle of the Attorney-General scurrying off to Yarralumla to use the Commonwealth’s power under the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act to quash the ACT Civil Unions Act 2006. We understand that he has done this before briefing his colleagues who had expressed concerns about this move. In effect, he delivered a fait accompli to his party room when he knew that a number of his colleagues and the voters of the ACT want this issue resolved differently.

What is all the fuss about? What has happened in the ACT that is so dangerous that the minister, at the behest of the Prime Minister no doubt, has bypassed parliament, bypassed his own party room and quashed the law passed by the duly elected ACT legislature? It is a law that was part of the ACT government’s platform not once but during two elections. What is all the panic about? I do not know, and there is only the slightest of clues in the explanatory statement that accompanies the minister’s disallowance. It says that his disallowance ‘supports the fundamental institution of marriage’ and that ‘the unique status of marriage is undermined by any measure that elevates other relationships to the same or similar level of public recognition and legal status’. That is difficult to understand and make sense of when you note these comments made by Minister Ruddock on ABC radio in January this year:

... most of the coalition would say that if a person wished to enter into a civil union, as distinct from a marriage ... we have no problem.

He went on to say, ‘It is a matter for the states and territories.’ It appears that that view has changed because, after the Attorney-General said in January that he had no problem with civil unions, he went to visit the Governor-General and have this changed. The Prime Minister said last week:

The fundamental difficulty I have with the ACT legislation is a clause which says that a civil union is different from a marriage but it has the same entitlements, now that is the equivalent of saying to somebody who’s passed the HSC and wants to get into a particular course, it’s saying to them well you haven’t got the requisite tertiary education score but we will let you go in the course anyway. I mean it’s a little bit hypocritical ...

Putting aside the fact that this is exactly what this government’s higher education policies do allow, the explanation is pathetic. It is hard to know what the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister are on about. How on earth does allowing same-sex couples to have civil unions undermine marriage? How does disallowing them from doing this support marriage? Is there anyone who genuinely believes that this is the case?

Same-sex couples have been having their relationships recognised by law in marriages or civil unions of some form in many countries for many years. In the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, Ireland and Scotland, same-sex couples can and do have civil unions. Many Australians, including friends of mine, have moved to those countries in order to have their relationships recognised and are no longer here, contributing to the Australian community, because they wanted to live in a society in which their relationship is recognised and where they could contribute to the country they live in.

Is the minister really asking the Senate and the people of the ACT to believe that the marriages of heterosexual couples in all these countries where civil unions and gay marriage are now allowed have been undermined? When Prime Minister Blair was here earlier this year, did the Prime Minister inquire how his marriage was? Presumably his marriage, like all other marriages in Britain, has been undermined by the legal union of thousands of British same-sex couples! That is the Prime Minister’s argument and presumably that is what he thinks. I ask this rhetorical question because it highlights the utterly ridiculous nature of the government’s argument. The reality is that the consequences of these countries allowing same-sex unions is that thousands of loving couples have been able to enjoy the legal and emotional benefits of having their relationships recognised by the law. In short, all that has happened is that thousands of loving couples and their families and friends have been made happier—and no-one has been harmed. No marriages have failed as a result and nothing has been undermined.

The Prime Minster was a bit more forthright on this issue during the debate on the Marriage Act in 2004, in which he revealed that for him same-sex marriages would ‘do nothing to support the survival of the species’. This outrageous remark by the Prime Minister is perhaps a clue to the real motivation behind his government’s actions. It is a motivation based in prejudicial, homophobic views typical of the 1950s rather than the Australia of the 21st century. That the Prime Minister and his colleagues are increasingly out of step with the community on this matter is borne out by recent polling.

Last week the Age provided research extrapolated from the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes, a poll of more than 2,000 people conducted last year, which suggested support for civil unions in Australia is about 50 per cent. Moreover, about two-thirds of Australians say that they accept the idea of gay and lesbian relationships. Sociologist Shaun Wilson commented:

It’s improved markedly, with young people, in particular, overwhelmingly, supportive of both gay marriage and civil unions.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that those community attitudes are not reflected in here. When we look in particular at the parliamentarians on the government bench, we see that they are not representative of the community as a whole. They are older, more conservative and more religious than we see in the Australian community. What is very sad, though, is that the government is not in tune with the community’s acceptance and celebration of love—because that is what this is all about. This is the message that I have received loud and clear from those who have been calling, faxing and emailing my office. And it is a message that I received when I attended the first illegal gay marriage in Sydney, held for two radio presenters from a commercial radio station.

I want to share with the Senate some of the views that have been expressed to me by people who have contacted my office. One email said:

I sit here and watch countries like the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, The Netherlands, South Africa, Ireland and Scotland, just to name a few, move forward in protecting same-gender couples and ensuring that they are afforded legal recognition within their relationships, but sadly in Australia we are regressing and I can’t help but feel hopeless and disheartened when I watch gays and lesbians from other countries embrace their rights. Gays and Lesbians should not be unprotected in their relationships just because they are gay and lesbian, but that is what is happening in Australia.

I dream of the day that Australian gays and lesbians can formalize their relationships and be afforded the same civil rights that are afforded heterosexuals in relationships and marriage. This cannot happen when the leadership of the country does appear so homophobic that he and his government move to quash same-sex civil unions in the ACT, and then in the same breath declare the move to not be homophobic. I think their actions are contradicting their statements.

Another local resident wrote to me and said:

I write to you as a productively, contributing resident of the ACT in response to the ACT Civil Unions Act and its recent overruling, or attempted overruling, by the Federal Government. As a tax paying and voting citizen of this country, I believe that the rights of a group of people in this country (including myself) are being abused by the involvement of the Federal Government in this case. I am a gay man and I have lived in a continuing same-sex relationship with my partner for over 25 years. This is a greater length of time than many heterosexual marriages and indeed a period of time of which we are both proud. I find it totally abhorrent that the government in this so-called democratic country can interfere in my personal life in this manner by not permitting my partner and I (if we choose) to have our relationship formally recognised in the ACT under the Civil Unions Act.

I have received a number of emails from public servants in the ACT who have written about how much hard work they have put into supporting this government and how much they feel abandoned by this government.

I have received emails from people who recall the comments of the Prime Minister that he would govern for all Australians, and they point to this legislation as an example of the Howard government not governing for all Australians. I received an email from a 58-year-old man in Canberra, who wrote:

My partner and I still have our military service medals. Sometimes I wonder if we should send them back, since our contribution to the military service of this country is apparently not considered sufficiently worthy to accord us the entitlements that most people take for granted.

I received another email, which said:

I cannot express enough how much John Howard and Phillip Ruddock fall below my expectations as leaders of this country. They are failing to represent the diversity of the Australian public and rather than leading the way forward appear to be overly eager to encourage a backwards movement in human rights and equality for all.

My relationship has the full support of my family and friends. They will all be attending the Civil Union between my partner and I and hopefully sharing the joys of our relationship as it unfolds over the years. I can only hope that the Australian federal Government will one day catch up to the contemporary Australia that we live in and realise that they are the ones who are being left in the closet.

It is these issues of human relationships, flesh and blood life, respect and acceptance that are important for the Greens.

Some other contributions on this debate that I have really enjoyed reading have been in the letters pages of the newspapers. One of them read that perhaps the ACT’s proposed civil unions would not have attracted the ire of the federal government if instead they had been called ‘individual relationship agreements’. Another one read:

Student unions, industrial unions, and now gay unions. I’d be worried if you play rugby.

But there are other issues at stake here, and there is also a democratic issue at stake here. The Attorney-General’s action in disallowing the ACT’s Civil Unions Act has been described by eminent constitutional law expert Professor George Williams of the University of New South Wales as heavy-handed and premature. He said:

It’s very unusual—it’s a major legal and political step to take to override what local people would say is their sovereign democratic legislature.

The Greens could not agree more. The people of the ACT have voted for a government that made civil unions part of their election platform for two elections. Support for the legislation in the ACT is not in question. The abuse of the democratic rights of the citizens of the ACT is obvious—but the minister is shameless in taking them away.

I urge senators to support this disallowance motion, because it supports the rights of the people of the ACT and of all Australians—all those Australians that the Prime Minister said he was going to govern for—to have their loving and caring relationships recognised. It is an important choice for senators to be making here in this parliament. Senators have the opportunity to say what their view is on the very important issue of love. Do they want to stand up and acknowledge the beauty of love and what it brings to our society and to our community? Or do they want to be a part of the politics of hate that says that only some people’s love should be recognised? Do they want to be part of the politics of hate that says that only some couples should be recognised in the community and that other couples should not have access to the same rights and entitlements, and that they should not be able to have their relationships recognised before their friends and their families?

This is an important issue that has an impact on all members of our community. The people who have been lobbying and campaigning on this issue are from a diverse range of backgrounds. They are people who care about families. They are people who want families to be kept together. They want children to have two parents that are legally recognised as their parents. They want those children to be protected and they want their families to be recognised. This proposal is saying that only some families and only some love should be recognised. The Greens reject that wholeheartedly. We want to see all parliamentarians joining with us to say: love is important and the recognition by the community of love and of the relationships that it holds together is also important. That is what the ACT are trying to do through their Civil Unions Act. We in this parliament should not be trying to stop them from recognising the validity of loving relationships. (Time expired)