Copeland Gordon: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Copeland Gordon: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17606] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 In the history of this Parliament I wonder whether there has ever been such a misnomer of a bill to the extent that this title is. This bill is called the Civil Union Bill but right now in New Zealand we all know that we have civil disunion. This country is divided very very deeply indeed according to whichever poll one likes to look at. I will take one that is relatively recent: the TV3 poll of 1000 people where 46 percent were in favour of this bill and 45 percent were against. 
In the months ahead I think this bill will reshape the political landscape of this country. I say to the Labour Government that I am quite sure from the contacts I have that it has lost touch with its own support base. Let me tell the Committee about a recent conversation I had with a member of a blue-collar workers union of this country. He told me that he and his fellow unionists—thousands of them—have voted Labour for generations. It has never crossed their minds to vote for anybody else because they revere the memory of people like Norman Kirk and Michael Joseph Savage and so on and so forth. But he went on to say to me that they are now thinking the unthinkable and that next year they will no longer vote for the Labour Party. He gave me the reason: the Labour Party’s moral agenda. It is not just civil unions but the whole agenda: legalised prostitution resistance to parental notification of young women under 16 years who are pregnant and seek an abortion and assisted human reproduction. Civil unions are just the last straw. It has been a cumulative process that has led them now to say they will no longer vote for the Labour Party. 
What sorts of people are in those kinds of unions? They are heterosexual males of every race and colour most of them are married and most of them have kids. In other words they are simply decent mainstream people who regard Ken Douglas as an icon and they have traditionally voted for the Labour Party. Labelling such people as homophobic causes deep resentment. I have spoken on civil union from literally Auckland to Gore to hundreds of people at public meetings. At none of those meetings has any one on any occasion ever said to me that he or she dislikes or hates homosexuals—not one. Yet in this Committee we are told that anybody who opposes this bill is homophobic. If one says: “I’m not homophobic.” the response is: “Oh yes you are homophobic.” If one persists: “No I’m not homophobic.” the response is: “Oh yes I insist you are homophobic.” That I think is a symbol simply of paranoia. Maybe it is paranoia that we are seeing very often when people rush in so quickly to label other people with such a term—which means for those who do not know that the person dislikes or hates gays. 
That is ridiculous nonsense. These are not people who are against other people. They are not people who are against gays or lesbians or this group or that group or bisexuals. These are people who are for something: for their marriages for their children and for their grandchildren. They are concerned about what their children and their grandchildren will be taught in the future if we pass this bill because what will be taught to those children will be changed overnight. We are talking about a deep change in our culture and unless we teach our culture and our morals to the next generation and beyond we will eventually see Western civilisation as we know it undermined and this measure is a step in that direction. These people are concerned that here we are again taking out another moral signpost so that our young people are left in greater confusion than they have ever been in terms of what is right and what is wrong in terms of how to live life and in terms of what is wisdom and what is folly. 
I say to the Labour Party that these people have given up on it. Members will see I am sure that that is fulfilled in the days and the months ahead and they will see it especially in the results of the 2005 election because I have it on assurance that a lot of these people will vote for an alternative to the Labour Party for the first time in their lives.