Goudie Sandra: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Goudie Sandra: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17602] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 In speaking to the title clause—because that is what we are supposed to be speaking to—I recall the title put forward by Larry Baldock: “Civil Relationships Act”. I suggest that the title could actually be “Anything Goes Act”. If one sees the premise of the Civil Union Bill as being based on human rights and loving relationships one has to ask oneself why then one would not support polygamy and having multiple partners a husband having multiple wives or a wife having multiple husbands or even support incestuous relationships. After all people could say that it is their human right and their loving relationship. 
Darren Hughes said that people’s relationships are unique and Marian Hobbs talked about options and choice. That is what they see as the premise of this bill so why should the title not be “Anything Goes”? Where do we set the benchmark for society? At what point do we say that this is a fundamental pillar of society and is what we need to nurture rather than go to an “anything goes” premise based on human rights and loving relationships? 
People have been asking why we in this place are doing this so quickly—why we are not going to public referendum. I fully support Brian Donnelly’s call for a public referendum—absolutely unequivocally. I could not believe it when I heard Tim Barnett who is really the driving force behind this bill actually say he did not believe that the rest of New Zealand other than those who were affected by this bill should have the right to have a say in it. That is my understanding of what he said and I have heard that said also by others in this Parliament. I absolutely deplore that. Every voting New Zealander should have an opportunity to decide what they see as the parameter for New Zealand society and that is what this is about. 
I will tell members why we are in urgency. I have a number of papers here and one of them the homosexual newspaper  
Express 
 points out that when Tim Barnett was invited to give his vision for the future he said: “We will not have a queer-friendly Government forever.” He also said: “I believe there is a real urgency to completing the equal rights agenda.” That is what was said—“We will not have a queer-friendly Government forever.” I find that terminology offensive and I am surprised that the paper itself did not find it offensive. We can look at others of the many bits of paper I have here. There is the MSN news poll in which 1337 were in support of the bill and 4441 were opposed to it. 
It is no wonder the Government did not want a referendum because the New Zealand public would have resoundingly and completely dumped this bill. The Government brought the bill to this Committee of the whole House under urgency and we know the reason: it wants to pass it while it has the opportunity because that opportunity will never come again. We have to wonder about what this Government really does because another of the pieces of information that came across my desk stated that on 29 September 2003 Ms Dalziel while still a Minister announced that new immigration partnership rules were to take immediate effect. That meant that marriage relationships were for the first time to be treated as exact equivalents to de facto heterosexual and same-sex partnerships in terms of applications for permanent resident status in New Zealand. So they have already started. 
I refer now to something Ian Wishart said because we do not know what we have until it has gone. When a fundamental change like this is made it is a fundamental change to society and we have to think really carefully about what we do. Therefore another reason why a referendum is needed is so the whole of society can say what it thinks the potential effects will be. We do not know what will be in place in 20 years’ time or what the effects will be. There will be enormous amounts of effects. Ian Wishart asks whether we really believe that humanity has suddenly become so enlightened. As members heard from a previous speaker society’s answer to that would be a resounding no. Do we believe that a select group of New Zealand parliamentarians know better than the collective human wisdom of New Zealand society? The answer would have to be absolutely and categorically no.