Eckhoff Gerrard: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17468] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I will address a couple of comments that were made by Ms Dalziel and Mr Peck. I totally agree with the previous member. Issues pertaining to the sexual preferences and sexuality of individuals have nothing to do with the State or anybody else. It should be in the bedroom in a private situation. 
I am not easily stunned. I have been around for a few years. I was stunned when just a few hours ago my secretary showed me—how can I put this nicely—the situations wanted column in a gay and lesbian magazine which I think we all get sent. I do not subscribe to it members will understand but I was sent this thing. I was glancing through it and my eyes were literally out 3 inches in front of me. I could not believe what I was reading in a newspaper. So this issue is not just in the bedroom it is out there and “in your face”. Whether that is a good or a bad thing I am not sure. I do not think it would be a particularly good thing if that newspaper got into the hands of children for example. Nevertheless that was the reality that I saw just a few moments ago. 
With regard to Mr Peck I was delighted to hear his speech. He was hugely passionate and rightly so about his family member’s situation. I think it is appropriate and proper that members of this Parliament display passion instead of looking at things in a non-human way. This issue is very literally about passion. It is about the human condition and how we approach these sorts of issues. 
I can tell members that a council candidate in Dunedin a young fellow by the name of Grant Benson is a cross-dresser. He is a relative of mine on my wife’s side members will understand. Nevertheless he is a relative of mine and one whom I would gladly cross the street to shake hands with and greet and I would have him at my dinner table. 
 I believe that in the next week or two a couple of gay guys from down the road a bit from us—they are restaurateurs members will understand—are coming to have dinner with me and my wife. Marg said to these people: “You mightn’t want to come. I think my husband’s going to vote against the bill.” They said: “Who cares?”. That was their response. It is quite wrong I suspect to say that every gay couple is clamouring for this bill. Every couple who live together perhaps an older couple for comfort surely to goodness and a little bit of security will be unionised by this bill. They do not want that. They do not want the belief amongst people in the street that because they have a civil union—not by choice—they are in fact having some sort of sexual relationship. That is not the way many people want their relationship to be viewed. They want a choice and so they should. 
What concerns me—and I am speaking in this debate not as an expert or someone who has profound knowledge but only because I think it is important that I relate at least once my view on this bill—is that as I have said in the past and will continue to say in the future we are passing legislation of the sort that I call “the laws of the unintended consequence”. We do not know what the consequences of this bill will be in the long term. We may think we know. I think back to how cruel children can be to other children at school who are a bit different—those who are a different colour shape size or whatever. Children are hugely cruel. What if a child says he or she has two dads or two mums? I do not care about the 25-year-olds the older ones who can manage themselves in the wider world. I think about the little children who will be impacted on by this bill through design—not by default but by design. Those are my concerns.