Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. So there we have it. That is what actually has gone on here and what is really going on here in terms of the ALP position.

The tragedy of this is that, around the country, there are so many young people in the gay and lesbian community who were desperately hoping that this matter would be dealt with on its merits—that discrimination would end in this country and in this period of government. Clearly, if people were able to express their view in the way that they would like then we would actually be able to change it in this parliament such that, in years to come, people would look back and say: 'Oh, for goodness sake, what was that about? We have actually done what we needed to do. We had to get rid of that level of discrimination.' But, instead of that, young people around the country are scratching their heads, saying they cannot understand why the ALP has done what it has done on marriage equality: why they are pushing it to a vote; why they are trying to get it out of the public arena in the lead-up to the election. Well, all that should be pretty clear now. There is a very clear power-play going on in the ALP being led by this particular union leader from the National Executive. So that is the issue.

As to the leader of the coalition, Tony Abbott, he is also on the wrong side of history on this and he has to really answer the question why he will not allow his party members to express a conscience view on this matter. If other parties are allowed to express conscience views, why not the coalition parties? It was interesting to hear, from Senator Brandis in particular, talk about carbon pricing in the middle of a debate about marriage equality. What an odd thing that someone like Senator Brandis should focus on that in the middle of a marriage equality debate? I would have thought he may have quite strong views of his own in regard to this matter since he is often described as one of the more liberal members of the Liberal Party; although, to the extent that they have moved to the right of Genghis Khan, that is probably not a reference to liberalism in the way that people have understood liberalism in the past.

It is clear to me that the real debate that needs to be taking place in Australia is: why has the Labor Party tried to get this off the agenda before the federal election? That is the question. I think young people and the community around the country, parents, want to know what is going on and why we are not taking this opportunity to do the right thing by a whole lot of people in Australia who deserve to be able to access a marriage certificate in the same way as everybody else. They want to know why they are still discriminated against.

In Tasmania, when I moved for gay law reform in 1997, it was very hard argued and hard-fought issue, and the people who opposed it said all kinds of outrageous things about what would happen with levels of paedophilia and so on if this actually occurred in Tasmania. All that was a complete nonsense, and now people in Tasmania go, 'What was that about?' Tasmanians have changed their views to such an extent that we now have a piece of legislation brought in by the Greens and supported by Lara Giddings, the Labor Premier of Tasmania, to make marriage equality legal in Tasmania. That is a fantastic thing. I believe in South Australia there is also a bill before the parliament. Lynn MacLaren, a Greens member in Western Australia, has brought one into the Western Australian parliament. Because the Commonwealth will not move, we now have right around the country a number of efforts by state parliaments to deal with this issue. I am very proud of the fact that the legislation has passed the House of Assembly in Tasmania and, no doubt, there will now be quite a vigorous discussion in the Legislative Council. But, if you go back to 1997, there was a vigorous discussion then and the Tasmanian Legislative Council did pass it, with only one vote against it in the end in terms of being fair to people in Tasmania, where, at that time, you could be jailed for 21 years for being a homosexual. That was pretty disgraceful. We went from the worst to the best, and now it is Australia's opportunity as a nation to do the right thing by people who simply want to marry, who want to have the discrimination against them ended. In my view, it is absolutely time that we do this, and I think it is about time that Joe de Bruyn and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Union and the ALP national executive actually explained to people what their problem is with this and the extent to which working together with the Christian lobby is preventing this outcome. (Time expired)