Barnett Tim: Civil Union Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
Barnett Tim: Civil Union Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:17643] 
TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 Four years ago this legislation was a spark in the minds of a few people who gave their time and skills to grow the idea. I honour Regan Andrew Clare Bear Calum Bennachie Jay Ocampo and Nick Toonen. For the past 2 years this bill has been moulded by politicians and officials and for the past 6 months by Parliament. I thank Lianne Dalziel and David Benson-Pope for bringing their own particular style to the development and management of this legislation. I thank all those groups of ordinary New Zealanders who submitted on the bill both for and against at the Justice and Electoral Committee. I thank Victoria Crawford who advised the select committee so well and Cameron Law Margaret Mayman and Michael Wallmannsberger who as campaigners explained the issues to the public. 
A passionate debate etches memories on the mind. Young people and families with lesbian and gay members understand in their hearts the need for civil unions. Mark Peck Deborah Coddington Luamanuvao Winnie Laban Nanaia Mahuta and Brian Donnelly know that. Yet some do not understand. I thought that Tariana Turia understood. Having watched her through the last week advocate same-sex marriage then the abolition of marriage and then majority referenda for minority rights I now know and regret that she does not. I thought my colleague Stephen Franks understood. Instead having declared the issue of civil unions a simple one—and I think he was quite right in that—he then performed a remarkable self-administered intellectual knock-out blow and remains a little confused in recovery. On a good day I even thought Richard Worth understood. Instead he fronted a Maxim Institute amendment to the bill which came within a hair’s breadth of offering legal recognition to a friendship between a man and his horse. Then possibly realising the extent of his mistake he galloped out of town. 
Few laws offer win-win solutions; I believe that the Civil Union Bill does. Its opponents have not shown what harm it does to anyone and have failed to answer repeated questions on what unintended and negative consequences have flowed from homosexual law reform or from human rights protections for lesbian and gay people. The truth is that they were seriously wrong then and they are seriously wrong now. But it is never too late to repent. If any of their children or grandchildren are brave enough to admit to them that they are lesbian or gay the personal will quite properly take over from the political and the world will look suddenly quite different to them. It happened to Senator Barry Goldwater a famed Arizona conservative campaigner against diversity and particularly against homosexuals. His grandson came out as gay. With love came understanding. Senator Goldwater re-emerged as a campaigner for human rights side by side with his grandson. 
I am not easily moved to tears but twice in this debate I have felt them welling up. The human stories pull at my heartstrings and I will quote one example: “My great-uncle David met his male partner Harry in 1947 in Wellington. In 1955 David’s father found out about their relationship and threatened to have them arrested and jailed. Eventually he calmed down and instead told them that they must move away from Wellington and have nothing to do with the family. They moved to Auckland where they spent the rest of their lives together. In 1997 Harry died peacefully in his sleep lying next to the man he had shared 50 years of his life with. For 45 of those 50 years not one of David and Harry’s siblings nephews nieces great-nephews or great-nieces ever acknowledged let alone celebrated their relationship and for the first 40 years of their lives together they lived in fear of the police—a nagging anxiety in the back of their minds. Even in the 1990s they could not bring themselves to get rid of the second bed they always had in their bedroom just in case the police knocked on the door in the middle of the night.” 
Those tears were there when colleagues whom I have never associated with these matters were stung by the venom flowing in this House and came into the House to speak in support of civil unions as the debate went on over the last few days. On 1 May the morning after the first civil unions the birds will sing the dawn chorus the sun will rise our volcanoes will not simultaneously explode and some New Zealand couples will awake as civil union partners. Their friends and families will also awake feeling that the world is a bit fairer than it was the day before. Homophobia will not disappear but the State will have recognised that love and commitment between two men and between two women is of value to the wider society and is worth protecting and that some men and women in de facto relationships want something other than marriage. What can be wrong with that? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: New Zealand First will split its 10-minute speech into two 5-minute speeches.