Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was a very enlightening speech that went across a number of subjects, ranging from wealth to values and so forth. The National Party has values—very strong values. One of those values is that the family is the basic unit of society, and that is founded on marriage. As someone who has enjoyed over 40 years of marriage, I stand very firmly against this motion moved by the Labor Party and the Democrats. I enthusiastically support the leadership decision to oppose this motion.

The ACT Civil Unions Act would have enabled same-sex couples to have a legally recognised civil union very similar to the marriage of heterosexual couples. The arrangements under the act bore marked similarity to those contained in the Marriage Act. Effectively, the Stanhope government was seeking to create an alternative system of marriage like relationships in the ACT in order to circumvent the definition of marriage in the Commonwealth Marriage Act.

We are strong defenders of traditional family values. There is no partnership, alliance or relationship that can be equated with the marriage of a man and a woman. This is an entity that cannot be replicated in any other form. The cynical motivation of the ACT government was demonstrated when it fast-tracked the commencement of its legislation in a bid to create civil unions which it knew would be invalidated by the Commonwealth. The ACT does not have the constitutional power to legislate like this for marriage. If it wants the constitutional power it should go to the people of the ACT and say, ‘We don’t want to be a territory anymore; we want to be a state.’ If they want the full right to statehood, they should go and take it up with the people.

The ACT government has shown it is willing to cynically use homosexuality as a political football against the Commonwealth. The Australian government was not prepared to countenance this political stunt. An instrument to disallow the ACT Civil Unions Act was made in the Executive Council on Tuesday. The instrument had the effect of invalidating the ACT Civil Unions Act from midnight that night. Therefore, there is no legal basis for the formation of civil unions.

While the government generally considers that issues concerning same-sex relationships are matters for the states and territories, The Nationals are strongly opposed to any action that would reduce the status of marriage to that of other relationships or which would create confusion over the distinction between marriage and other relationships. The government wrote to Mr Stanhope, expressing a range of concerns about the legislation and the extent to which it served to confuse civil unions with the institution of marriage.

The ACT government did make some amendments to the bill before the debate on it and its passage through the ACT Legislative Assembly, but they did not deal adequately with the fundamental concerns of the federal government. As one example, the legislation still states in section 5(2):

A civil union is different to a marriage but is to be treated for all purposes under territory law in the same way as a marriage.

It is a marriage when you do not have a marriage.