Hughes Darren: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Hughes Darren: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17597] 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the title and commencement clauses of the Civil Union Bill. It is interesting to follow Richard Worth. I was pleased finally to hear a contribution from him in the Committee stage particularly after we voted for so many hours on amendments that were proposed by him—not that I am necessarily saying they were drafted written or thought of by him but they were certainly lodged by him on the floor of the Chamber earlier today. One of the things Mr Worth tried to say was that somehow Labour Party members were not exercising a conscience on this bill. I think that is a particularly low thing to say. It is true that the majority of Labour members of Parliament are voting in favour of this bill. A number are not; about six of our colleagues have said they will not support the bill just as in the National Party the majority oppose the bill apart from three members who support it. So in the two major parties there is a majority view one way with a small group doing the opposite of their colleagues. We do not make a big point about that. We just recognise that that is a matter of conscience so I do not think that is a fair thing for him to say. 
In terms of the title the bill is called the Civil Union Bill. However we have not spent much time in Committee talking about civil unions. Opponents of the bill have spent most of the time talking about marriage and about the great damage that they believe this bill causes to marriage. I do not share that view at all. The Government was very clear that it would protect marriage and that it would be available only to men and women in heterosexual relationships because of some of the very specific concerns that members have been raising in this debate about the institution of marriage. The Government went away and looked at creating a new institution of civil union that would be open not just to heterosexual de facto couples but also to same-sex couples. This has not been done as some great attack on marriage yet a number of MPs have only been able to talk about marriage as though somehow this bill is an amendment to the Marriage Act. I ask members to reflect on that because we are protecting marriage and keeping it in its current form but we are saying that given there are 320000 New Zealanders in loving and committed relationships that are not marriages—either because they have chosen for them not to be or because the law prohibits them from being recognised in law—we are creating a new institution and calling it civil union. 
I welcome the title of the bill. I wish members would focus on that because it does not hurt anybody. There is not one married member of Parliament in this Chamber whose marriage is in anyway demeaned degraded or abused by the fact that we will allow other New Zealanders in committed relationships to have the law recognise their relationships. Some members of Parliament are saying they would rather have gay couples treated as legal strangers because somehow that enhances their own marriages. It has nothing to do with it at all. People’s relationships are highly individual and unique. If a married couple lives in a street next door to another married couple and their neighbours’ marriage breaks up—if there is an affair or a divorce—it does not demean their own marriage. We do not say that because we both had marriages and that because next door’s marriage busted up my marriage has somehow been degraded. I think people are forgetting what relationships are. I do not think it is fair that we should say there should be no legal avenue at all for people who are gay or who are in de facto relationships and who choose not to marry. I cannot see how anybody is made a better person or how anyone’s relationship is really better because they have denied their neighbour—or someone who lives four or five streets away or in another city town or village—the right to have their relationship recognised. Nobody has been able to explain that at all. 
In terms of the commencement clause although I respect the amendment Brian Donnelly is putting forward because it is consistent with New Zealand First’s policy on referendum I will not be voting for his amendment. In defence of Brian Donnelly I think the way that some members of Parliament have hijacked the New Zealand First policy as a way of trying to hide their own bankrupt positions on this bill is outrageous. Because they see the bill coming to a very close stage they say “Hang on our arguments have not worked so how can we try to delay it? I know we’ll jump on to the New Zealand First bandwagon.” I think that is wrong. The person who is most wrong in that regard is the Leader of the Opposition because he cast a personal vote in favour of the Prostitution Reform Bill which went through Parliament with a much tighter margin than this bill looks likely to do and did not at any point call for a referendum. In fact the Leader of the Opposition voted for the Prostitution Reform Bill and never had this great call of conscience in terms of a referendum. But New Zealand First by contrast has always done that. 
I was very disappointed that another leader in this Chamber has called for a referendum which came as a surprise and that was the leader of the Maori Party Tariana Turia. She now I understand believes that important matters ought to be decided for minorities by referendum. That is not her view of course on the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand. That is not her view on whether New Zealand should have Maori seats. She does not want to put those issues to the popular vote because she will not expose minorities to that. I think positions have to be consistent. I support the bill.