Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Abetz) to a question without notice asked by Senator Rice today relating to marriage equality.

I was very saddened by the response that we got from Senator Abetz and his decision to focus on the technicalities of whether what happened in their party room yesterday amounted to denying their members a free vote or not, rather than go to the crux of the issue and what the result of that decision of their party room actually means to thousands and thousands of Australians who are suffering discrimination and are not being treated as citizens equal to the rest of us. I was saddened by the total lack of care, the lack of compassion and the inability to listen to the people concerned. There are real people involved in this debate—real people who are suffering discrimination—whose voices are not being heard by this government. It is a very callous approach, denying the reality of what delaying the achievement of marriage equality in Australia means to thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex Australians and their families. And it is just a delay; it is just dragging our heels, lagging behind the rest of the world—because we know that eventually love is going to prevail. We will eventually get marriage equality, but there is this unnecessary delay that, because of yesterday's decision of the Liberal-National party room, people are being put through.

There is the person I mentioned in my question today, Gerard, who called in to ABC Radio this morning. At 62 and not in good health, he was despairing that he was not going to be able to solemnise his relationship with his partner because of this delay. There are people like a young man whom I met this year, Harry. Harry is 17 and a young gay man. He has a teacher who is gay and who, he said, he is very fortunate to have developed a very caring relationship with and who can help him through the issues and the discrimination that he is facing. He has uncles who cannot marry like his other uncles. These are the messages being sent by this government that these people are all second-class citizens.

I think of another young friend, Sean, who has just got engaged to his partner and wants to marry. He was hoping that we would be able to take another step forward to them being treated the same as the rest of us—normal—where it does not matter whether you are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex, you are just treated as a normal person, able to share in the symbols, the traditions and the culture of our society. But no. Think of the impact it will have on people like my wife, Penny. Penny and I are married, but it means that Penny cannot change her birth certificate to say that she is female because, if she were to change her birth certificate as a transgendered person, we would have to get divorced. They are the implications of not having marriage equality in this country. There are real people who are suffering discrimination. Huge mental health issues are associated with this. We know the huge benefits for the wellbeing of thousands and thousands of Australians that would be achieved as soon as we attain marriage equality in Australia.

The other part of Senator Abetz's response to my question today which I was astounded by was his dismissal of the visit this morning by the members of the clergy who presented to parliament. He dismissed them as 'just some' members of the clergy. The members of the clergy who were at the parliament today represent Australian Christians for Marriage Equality and they said, in the letter that they presented to parliamentarians today, that 'the voices of Christian people who support marriage equality are often lost in the public conversations' and that 'the Christian organisations that advocate the ongoing exclusion of GLBTI people from the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage do not represent the views of the majority of Christians'. Fifty nine per cent of Australian Christians support marriage equality. Amongst Roman Catholics, they told us, 67 per cent support it. There were many of those clergy members here this morning, and they presented this letter, which was signed by over 100 members of the clergy from all around Australia and from all Christian faiths—Anglican, Salvation Army, Uniting Church, Baptist and Metropolitan Community Church. There is wide and broad support from the Christian community. For them to be dismissed by the government today is an appalling lack of representation. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.