Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak for 20 minutes.

Leave granted.

Initially tonight I wish to make a call for the government to commit wholeheartedly and immediately to the redevelopment of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation facility in Scottsdale, in north-east Tasmania. In making that call, I recognise that the government has only very recently cancelled the redevelopment of this facility. That is a great shame and a body blow to north-east Tasmania.

Just last week, as a result of a recent visit to the facility in Scottsdale, I was advised that the $12.6 million upgrade development had been cancelled. This had been approved and the go-ahead was given in May this year. The cancellation is, as I say, a body blow to the north east. The project, if it is to proceed, is now clearly set for significant delays. I call on the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Warren Snowdon, and his government—and Senator Feeney, if he has an involvement in this decision making—to exercise his power as a matter of urgency to ensure that this development proceeds.

I would like to know the reason for the cancellation of this tender process—as would members of the public, particularly the people in north-east Tasmania. What are the accuracies of these reports? What is the length of the expected delays? I wrote last week, on 18 November, to Minister Snowdon seeking a response, and to date I have not received one. I am advised that three tenders received were substantially above the $12.6 million allocated to the development and substantially above the $15 million threshold whereby the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Public Works needs to approve the development. If this is the case and is now cited as a reason for this tender process being cancelled, how was such poor planning allowed to occur in the first place?

I have been in touch with the Deputy Chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Public Works, Senator Judith Troeth, and I thank her for her feedback that she will use whatever endeavours and efforts are possible to expedite this matter if it does come before the committee. I will ensure on behalf of the people of the north-east that every effort will be made to fast-track this development. I would like to know: will this require ministerial approval? I assume the answer is yes. When will that approval be sought? And is the minister on behalf of the government proceeding with obtaining that approval?

The facility in Scottsdale was established in 1954 and has long played an important role in providing appropriate rations for our front-line troops. It also provides excellent research outcomes and solutions for our Australian defence forces, wherever they are in Australia or overseas. It is a significant facility in the economy and community of north-east Tasmania, with some 15-odd jobs based in Scottsdale.

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

They have beautiful food.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They do have beautiful food in the north-east, Senator Boswell, and I know you have been there and appreciate it very much indeed. This delay and uncertainty is yet another blow to the north-east, particularly noting the recent and impending job losses in the region.

I note also with concern a number of contracts on the AusTender website that have been awarded to a New Zealand company, Prepack, for ration packs for the Australian Defence Force. My initial investigations discovered contracts valued in the order of $16½ million over a number of years. Why are these products being sought from overseas to the further detriment of home-grown producers and facilities? What are the implications of these and similar contracts for the facility in Scottsdale? I have asked the minister to consider the merits of sourcing this produce directly from Scottsdale. Surely this facility at Scottsdale and other relevant facilities around Australia are strategic assets. To be obtaining ration packs and food from overseas when Tasmania, in particular, is meant to be the food bowl of this great country, Australia, is a great disappointment indeed. I think some explaining is required by the government.

I acknowledge the collaboration of the facility at Scottsdale with the University of Tasmania and the CSIRO with respect to research and the importance of appropriate nutrition for our soldiers of whatever colour, shape and size across the globe and undertaking the work on behalf of our citizens. I wish to recommend a significant and further investment in both the research and production capacities of the Scottsdale facility, which would also provide additional jobs there. Now is the time to grow the capacities, with a new and fresh asset ready to use. I have briefed the mayor, Barry Jarvis, and his council and I know they are very supportive of this call. I have also written to Stuart Robert, our relevant shadow minister.

Today I have also written to Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, who is responsible for our overseas aid program, and said that the additional capacity at Scottsdale may also be of use in Australia’s delivery of foreign aid as we continue to play our part in striving to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which has bipartisan support. Ration packs and other foodstuffs developed with the latest technology to ensure maximum nutritional value should be part of our foreign aid provision from Australia, if they are not already. Those affected by natural disasters—such as those seen recently in Pakistan with the dreadful floods, or in Haiti with the earthquakes, or in Indonesia with the consequences of the volcano eruptions—would particularly benefit from ration packs of this kind. In any case, it is my view that the Scottsdale facility should be a key supplier of such aid, with parallel benefits for the Australian Defence Force and the Scottsdale community. I asked Minister Rudd to consider this proposal and indicated that I look forward to hearing from him. So I call on the government to recommit to the facility and to consider the calls I have made in my address to the Senate tonight.

There is a second matter I wish to raise. Tonight I stand in support of marriage. Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life. Although this definition was only formally inserted some years ago into the Marriage Act 1961, it is neither recent nor arbitrary. The definition is derived from the common law. The common law ultimately reflects the fundamentals of human biology and the deep interests of the community in regulating sexual relations between men and women in order to guarantee the best possible environment for raising children.

It was on 31 March 2004 that I drafted a letter to the then Prime Minister, John Howard. That letter was signed by some 30 coalition colleagues. The letter sought support to codify in legislation the current common-law definition of marriage, because up until then the Marriage Act 1961 did not include such definition. I will not go through all of the letter but in its conclusion I wrote the following:

Marriage is a bedrock institution worthy of protection. Marriage is an enduring institution, having been with us for thousands of years and across cultures and religion. It is a social institution which benefits the family members and society. It provides for stability in society. It specifically benefits the children and is designed to ensure their welfare is maximised. There should be no doubt about its definition.

I referred to the quote by Prime Minister John Howard at the time on the John Laws 2UE program on 8 March 2004 where he said:

I think there are certain benchmark institutions and arrangements in our society that you don’t muck around with, and children should be brought up ideally by a mother and a father who are married. That’s the ideal. I mean, I’m not saying people who are unmarried are incapable of being loving parents. Of course they are. I mean I believe in the maximum conditions of stability for people who have children.

That letter had the intended effect, and that was to ask the government to draft an amendment to the Marriage Act to ensure that that definition was inserted. Subsequently, later in 2004, that was done with bipartisan support—with the support of the Labor Party—following the Marriage Forum in this parliament. That was hosted by the National Marriage Coalition together with the support of the Australian Christian Lobby—I noticed Lyle Shelton in the gallery here tonight and I acknowledge his great work, service and leadership for the ACL—and of the Australian Family Association and many others all around Australia. The Great Hall was booked out, with more than a thousand people there and hundreds more outside wanting to express their view that marriage should be defined as between a man and a woman. It had the desired effect: the definition was to be included.

Each element of the definition inserted into the Marriage Act 1961 on a bipartisan basis in 2004 is essential to its nature. That traditional definition includes these components:

… the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.

Altering any of these components would radically alter the definition so that it could no longer be said that the changed definition was of the same thing. For example, removing the reference to the voluntary nature of marriage might accommodate those cultures in which marriage is a contract arranged by others into which a man and a woman are obliged or even coerced to enter, regardless of their own will on the matter. However, including coercive unions within the definition of marriage would alter the nature of marriage substantially. I note that the Attorney-General just yesterday launched a consultation into how to prevent coerced or servile marriages. There is no suggestion that we change the definition of marriages in Australia to accommodate cultures where coerced or servile marriages are acceptable.

Similarly, removing the requirement for exclusivity to accommodate polygamy would alter the nature of marriage. It is noteworthy that in the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009, introduced by the Greens into the last parliament and decisively rejected by 45 votes to 5 in the Senate, the requirement for exclusivity in marriage was to be discarded.

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

What do you mean?

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They did not include it in their marriage bill, Senator Boswell. The requirement that marriage is to be between a man and a woman was also discarded. So this proposal was in line with many proposals for same-sex marriage that insist that the exclusivity of traditional marriage needs to be modified to accommodate the different mores of same-sex relationships.

What did the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee report, and specifically my dissenting report, on that Greens bill in November 2009 say? It says that marriage between a man and a woman has ‘particular benefits to society’ that warrant recognition and protection. I quoted the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, which said:

It is a union that is publicly recognised and treated as special, distinguished from other types of relationships because of its unique capacity to generate children and to meet children’s deepest needs for the love and attachment of both their father and mother.

In my view, every child entering this world should have a reasonable expectation, all things being equal, of a mother and a father. I believe this strongly and deeply. Proponents of same-sex marriage have sought to underplay the importance of male and female role models in the upbringing of children and to discount the importance of children in any consideration of whether same-sex marriage should be sanctioned. They have sought instead to argue that marriage is primarily about two people’s commitment to each other, and they ignore children’s rights. While I recognise that commitment is essential in a marriage relationship, the raising of children in the best possible environment can never be taken out of the equation. Accordingly, I quoted the Australian Christian Lobby in that report. They said:

Reducing marriage to a simple contract of consent and love between two people is a revisionist approach that has neither context nor legitimacy. It is a selfish, adult-centred approach that rejects the broader cultural significance of marriage and its centrality to children and society. It discards the significance of marriage as an important social good held by a shared community as a public commitment to family and the raising of children.

So I believe there is a clear public good associated with the marriage status quo. I am of the view that this public good should be recognised and strongly supported, and for that reason I support proposals that resource education programs for marriage and counselling for people seeking to marry or, indeed, in a marriage relationship. I certainly support whatever we can do to support marriage as an institution.

In that report I also quoted Cardinal George Pell, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, who said:

It is not unjust discrimination against homosexual couples to uphold marriage as being between a man and a woman. Marriage and same-sex unions are essentially different realities. Justice, in fact, requires society to recognise and respect this difference.

I acknowledge the work in 2008 in which over 80 pieces of legislation were amended to remove any discrimination with respect to same-sex couples from our Commonwealth laws. That has bipartisan support and it went through the parliament accordingly.

I would like to also refer to a number of other points on this matter. What is being proposed by proponents of same-sex marriage is not mere finetuning of the definition of marriage but a full-on assault on one of its key elements: namely, that it involves the union of a man and a woman. To change the definition of marriage to encompass a union between any two persons would be effectively to abolish marriage in Australian law by replacing it with something quite different and alien. Recognising a right of two people of the same sex to marry would not expand the established right to marry but would redefine the legal meaning of marriage. Marriage has traditionally been given a highly respected and protected status in law precisely because it regulates the sexual relationship between men and women, the only sexual relationship that can result in the conception and birth of a child.

I want to refer to a recent opinion piece by Dr David van Gend, a very good article in the Courier Mail of Tuesday, 16 November, entitled ‘Same-sex marriage hurts kids’. He indicated in his article:

The gay marriage debate, at its heart, is not about the rights and needs of the adults, but of the child.

He said:

A child needs at least the chance of a mum and a dad in his or her life and same-sex marriage makes that impossible.

Of course, if you support same-sex marriage, you also automatically support gay adoption, and that is a concern; it is a matter that I certainly do not support. Dr van Gend said:

The “marriage” of two women would deprive an adopted boy of his role model for being a man, and the “marriage” of two men would deprive a growing girl of a mother to learn from and confide in.

He makes some other good points in his article.

I will now move on. At the Australian Christian Heritage Forum held on 6 and 7 August 2006 I said:

The consistent attack on the denigration of Australia’s Christian heritage, whether it be by the institution of marriage, the push for a valueless education system or the removal of Christmas carols and the nativity scene from schools and other places, it seems that at every juncture the Christian community and its leaders were defending.

Of course, the grassroots response in defence of marriage between a man and a woman received overwhelming community support and ultimately bipartisan parliamentary support, an excellent result—referring to the 2004 amendment. But I now want to throw out a clarion call, a call to action. You see, the Greens, with the support of Labor in the House of Representatives, have passed a motion and they want to get feedback from their local communities. I call on members of the public, members of the churches, members of families and members of communities right across this country to express your view. Labor at the moment is conflicted on this matter. There is a fight within the Labor Party for its very soul. There are people in this chamber who have a view that is contrary to my own—

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

And some would have a view that would match it.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And there are some that have a view that matches my own. They know who they are. But that is a matter for the Labor Party. I noticed yesterday that the Northern Territory Labor Party indicated its support for gay marriage. There seems to be a fight for the very soul of the Labor Party, and that is happening as we speak. There have been some articles this week by Piers Ackerman and Christopher Pearson, who have highlighted in particular that the Greens tail seems to be wagging the Labor dog and the Greens hand is very firmly on the shoulder of the Labor government as we speak. I note that a Miranda Devine article this week was absolutely spot on in my view. She said:

One of the consequences of remaking marriage to include gays is that it will be transformed from an institution centred on the well-being of children to one centred on the self-fulfilment of adults.

Marriage will become just another lifestyle choice, rather than a bedrock institution of our Judaeo-Christian society, providing the optimal chance for a child to thrive and grow up free of abuse.

But that belief, it seems, is not worthy of respect or protection. It deserves respect and protection and I call on the public to express their views accordingly. (Time expired)