Jones Dail: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Jones Dail: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17462] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 This is my first call on the matter and I appreciate it. New Zealand First supports a referendum on this issue as it would on many other issues. I take Nandor Tanczos’ point. As I said in my second reading speech New Zealand First would support a referendum on the legislation dealing with GM and suchlike; we have said that. As far as a free-trade agreement is concerned in direct democracy that could be the subject of a referendum as well. So it is a question of what the people want. New Zealand First is prepared to accept what the people want and to set out a very clear question; hence the amendment to the legislation from Brian Donnelly to put this to the vote of the people and ask them whether they want a Civil Union Bill in the form that is before us today. 
Of course this is a gay marriage bill. It is based on the Marriage Act. The Government has taken the Marriage Act and replaced the word “marriage” with “civil union”. If we look at the Civil Union Bill and—for all those members who are interested—at say clause 15 the words: “Compare: 1955 No 92” is a reference to the Marriage Act. This bill is based entirely on the Marriage Act. All the Government has done is to do what all lawyers do when they want to create something new: they find the best precedent. The best precedent for the Civil Union Bill is the Marriage Act. The words have been changed to “civil union” but otherwise the Government has virtually used the Marriage Act. 
This bill is marriage in drag as someone said a little while ago. The Government is pretending it is not marriage but in fact that is what it is. That is what the Government wants of course. We have heard it said that a Labour Minister wants to be the first to go down the aisle and get married in terms of this bill. He is waiting for it. Of course that is the debt due to him from Helen Clark because he was the one—was he not—who destroyed the painting for which she was getting into so much trouble and as a result she could not be charged in court. That is the pay-off to him for this legislation. That is what this bill is all about. It is a pay-off by Helen Clark to a very few people who have done so much for her in the past. It is as simple as that. How many people would be eligible for gay marriage? It is fewer than 10000. So here we are passing a bill whereby if everyone who was in that type of relationship decided to take it up we would have 5000 civil unions. We are passing legislation for as small a number of people as that. Is that so important? 
We have on the Order Paper at the moment the Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill. More people are affected by that bill—probably five times as many—as are affected under the Civil Union Bill. The Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill has been before the House for about a year. The Civil Union Bill has been before the House for about 3 months. That is the priority this Government has. It is ramming this bill through the House and of course before Christmas in the hope that it will go away next year. Well New Zealand First will make sure that it will not go away next year. I am confident this will be a matter of our election policy that there will be a referendum on the gay marriage legislation being put forward by the Labour Party. There is absolutely no doubt about it. 
New Zealand First was accused by Georgina Beyer of being pious and moral. She said there was something wrong in being pious and moral. Well I am very happy to be pious and moral—I am very happy to be moral; I do not know about the pious bit. Does that mean then that Georgina Beyer and her supporters are impious and immoral? I will leave that for members and others to decide. But that is the clear implication in her speech. If she said that those who oppose this bill are moral and pious what does that say for those who support it? 
Of course there is another reason for this bill. It is very convenient to rush back into the House for another reason when the Government is experiencing great embarrassment and difficulty over Ahmed Zaoui. It is a great way to divert attention. Sir Robert Muldoon knew that the best thing to do when the Government was in trouble was to bring in an abortion bill so all the attention would be removed from the particular problem of the day and everyone would pay attention to the abortion legislation or whatever other legislation was brought in to divert attention. This bill is here to divert attention from the Government’s failure in its policy announced 2 years ago to keep national security risks in prison and of course the Minister in charge in that area is the Prime Minister Helen Clark. It is she who is trying to protect herself. She is trying to help out her old mate Chris Carter so that he can be the first to go down the aisle as he said he would. All this bill will do is upset all those young people who decide to take the challenge and get married and go through all the rigmarole of the day.