Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I was not surprised that Labor supported our amendment; I thought you would—although I was worried there for a second that you might have knocked it down on the grounds of inelegance! The point the Minister for Community Services makes is true: there is recognition in the bill of a partner in an interdependent relationship. However, the point needs to be made that there have been repeated comments by many coalition MPs, not just Mr Entsch but also Mr Howard and others, that people should not be discriminated against because of the gender of their partner—I am paraphrasing but I am certainly not misrepresenting them—but that is what you are doing when you define ‘spouse’ in a way that recognises de facto opposite-sex relationships but does not recognise de facto same-sex relationships. It puts them on a different footing.

The interdependency component in there is welcome. It is similar to the current arrangements in the Migration Act. There is an interdependency visa. That was created many years ago, as I said, specifically as a result of Democrat pressure and action. It was before I was elected to the Senate, so it is going back quite a while. But we still have a scenario where there are limited numbers under the interdependency category. It is, if you like, a second-hand approach to circumventing the requirement to recognise people’s same-sex relationships—not to in any way recognise them in a marriage like sense but recognise them in the same way that de facto relationships have long been recognised under Commonwealth law. An interdependent relationship is not just a same-sex relationship. Indeed, it is good that those wider interdependent relationships are recognised because it shows the immense diversity of relationships. But to continue to put same-sex relationships in that basket and treat them differently from opposite-sex relationships maintains that discrimination.