Dalziel Lianne: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — Second Reading 
Dalziel Lianne: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:624;Page:18987] 
LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I had intended to begin my comments on this second reading by thanking Stephen Franks for the gracious comments that I thought I was listening to on my entry to the Chamber but unfortunately it was not to be. They were a kind of backhanded compliment. 
I want to put on the record how hard the Justice and Electoral Committee worked to get the bill right. We went through every single proposed amendment to make sure that if we were to extend rights to those who were in de facto relationships it was the right thing to do. I am confident we have made the right decision on each and every one of them. 
There are areas where we have not extended the coverage of the law to de facto couples and I think reasonably so taking on board the comments that the previous member made. There are occasions when people who enter into a marriage or—now—in the future a civil union as well are making a positive decision to enter into a relationship that brings with it certain rights and obligations. That is clear-cut. It is a clear definition of the relationship. But for de facto relationships different tests need to be applied. In the area of property relationships those laws do not apply until the couple have been in a relationship for 3 years. We did not put an entry point or a threshold point into the definition of de facto because why would people want to see a time limit or a time threshold included for every single situation? We have made some very sensible decisions to extend the laws to de facto couples where appropriate and to leave certain matters for future consideration of Parliament if they are more appropriately dealt with in another area. 
I will come to social security in a minute but will just use the Evidence Act as an example. We have not amended the Evidence Act to remove spousal immunity. For those who consider that that is discrimination—personally I do not but for a different reason—I point out that spousal immunity is a key issue within evidence law. It is best dealt with by the review of the Evidence Act. There has been a full Law Commission report on the Evidence Act and I know that the Government is considering that report and will be introducing amending legislation I hope by way of a code at some stage in the future. We discovered when we were going through all the individual parts of the bill that we had an amendment to the Courts Martial Appeals Act that itself was an expression of spousal immunity. We made a decision as a committee that we should leave the spousal immunity issue to the review of the Evidence Act and that the Courts Martial Appeals Act should be amended in line with the decision made about the Evidence Act and I support that approach. It was a very sensible one. 
Stephen Franks 
: Tell us about the Governor-General. 
LIANNE DALZIEL 
: I do not want to go with the Governor-General issue at all. I think the chances of those provisions ever being applied are so slim that I would be wasting my breath to spend a moment on them. 
I want to respond to one issue that Stephen Franks raised—that is the issue of next of kin status. Next of kin status we discovered is mentioned in very few pieces of legislation. In fact probably half a dozen laws in this land actually use the expression “next of kin”. But we all know that the term “next of kin” is used in many many other situations that are not covered by the law. A classic one is hospitals where people have to provide information on their next of kin. The bottom line is that marriage does not have next of kin status in an Act. “Next of kin” is not defined in any Act. Obviously everyone would accept that my husband is my immediate next of kin and I am his. Civil union status will give the same status—that is it proves the relationship without question. So next of kin status as it applies in practice to married couples will also apply to civil union couples. The same cannot be said of de facto couples and that is why it is to be determined on a case by case basis. 
The last thing I want to comment on in this second reading is the definition of a de facto relationship. The committee actually poured a lot of energy into this. We were concerned that taking the definition in the property relationships legislation into the Interpretation Act could have unintended consequences. The bottom line is that all of that law is about what happens to property at the end of a relationship; it is not about establishing rights and obligations during a relationship. We were deeply concerned that all the court cases that have led to the development of this interpretation both in Australia and in New Zealand are about looking at property issues at the end of a relationship or about social security entitlements. We did not think that was a good enough basis for taking us forward in terms of the Interpretation Act which is why we have simply added to the definition that it is a relationship in the nature of marriage or a civil union. 
In terms of the Social Security Act I take Stephen Franks’ point: yes the Government made a decision not to extend the de facto provisions—that is to extend the definition to include civil union being a relationship in the nature of a civil union of longer than 2 years. But as a result we have actually left the definition of a de facto relationship out of the Social Security Act because we felt that the Ministry of Social Development in its advice to the committee was really trying to struggle with the definition that came out of the Ruka decision. We felt that that would be much better introduced as a separate amending bill and referred to the specialist select committee that deals with social security matters. So it was not as though members of the committee wanted to walk away from what was intended by the amendment; what we wanted was to make sure this issue got the full and proper consideration it deserves. 
There are all sorts of cases relating to people trying to prove they are not in a de facto relationship for social security purposes. If Mr Franks wants to contemplate why the Government might want to distinguish between a same-sex couple and a de facto couple in similar circumstances it is really as a result of all of those unsatisfactory cases where people say they are not living in a relationship in the nature of marriage. People have not had the opportunity to enter into a civil union in the past and there are many couples living together in a relationship in the nature of a civil union who to the public are not seen as a couple because they are still hiding their relationship. That is an issue from a different perspective that I think sets them apart from other couples. We still have discrimination in this country and couples do not always want to be outed as it were—certainly not by somebody looking at whether their benefit entitlement is appropriate. 
So I think the select committee has worked very hard. I would like to place on record my congratulations to Tim Barnett on an excellent job in chairing a very hard-working committee.