Carter Chris: Civil Union Bill — First Reading 
Carter Chris: Civil Union Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:618;Page:13939] 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I rise to support the Civil Union Bill before the House this afternoon. I care deeply about this bill. My colleagues and I have fought long and hard for it to appear in this Parliament and I am delighted that after decades of trying it is finally here. This bill and its companion bill the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill will give my partner Peter—who is here today in the gallery—and I alongside thousands of other New Zealanders gay and straight an opportunity publicly to register our relationship and to obtain proper legal protection for our rights. 
For Peter and I that opportunity comes for the first time after 31 years together. My partner and I met in 1973 when we were both students. At the end of that year we travelled to Europe together and we have not been separated since. Everything we have done in life we have shared together from farming to involvement in politics. Peter has been my support and my motivation. He is currently secretary of the Parliamentary Spouses Association. Many members of this House know him well including a number who will be voting against this bill this afternoon. We share the parenting of three children. He has a son aged 13 and I have a 14-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son. We love our children very much. We watch over them nurture them and educate them in the same way that good parents try to do all over New Zealand. 
In every respect our relationship is fundamentally the same as the many thousands of long-standing marriages shared by New Zealanders everywhere with one critical difference: one of us is the wrong gender. That fact has required us to fight for every shred of validity that our relationship now has. That fact has required us to be wary of prejudice all our lives. That fact has prevented us from ever being able to swear a commitment to each other that is recognised by the State. 
Some in this House have questioned how much this issue really matters. After all we can still have our relationship. I ask them whether they remember their wedding day. Do they hang a photo of the event on the wall? Do they celebrate each anniversary? Perhaps a person understands how much those small opportunities mean only when they do not exist—when everyone else has them but not oneself. 
The irony is that this bill does not allow couples like Peter and I to marry. I am often asked whether I am comfortable with this—and actually I am. I accept that marriage has a traditional and religious heritage which is why our churches are so protective of it. I recognise that those churches often cannot include same-sex couples in their world view. Therefore I accept that it could be difficult for the State to apply the institution of marriage to same-sex couples until the majority of our religions have done so. Having said that I utterly reject the idea that the State cannot create an alternative way of recognising couples—be they straight or gay—like Peter and I who wish to make a different public legal expression of their relationship. 
That is what the Civil Union Bill does. It does it in such a way that it gives same-sex couples like us a fair go for the first time and gives opposite-sex couples a choice for the first time. The bill will not undermine marriage. I do not believe the institution of marriage is so fragile that it cannot withstand justice for some and choice for others. It seems to me that a couple that actively choose marriage over a civil union as the legal expression of their relationship has enhanced the institution of marriage not devalued it. 
Over the past couple of months I have been bombarded by people claiming that marriage between a man and a woman is the only appropriate environment for children to grow up in. I utterly reject the notion that my family is less valid than anyone else’s. My children have two fathers and two mothers. I utterly reject the suggestion that the State should discriminate against my relationship my family and my children because it suits someone else’s personal morality for it to do so. How do I explain that situation to my children or to anyone else’s children? Do I explain to them that we live in a country where the law says that it does not matter whether one has a good or bad relationship and it does not matter whether one is a good or bad parent—it just matters that one marries someone of the opposite sex? I could never do that and I never will. My children know by personal experience that it does not matter what gender the people in a relationship are. What matters is that those people are truthful and loyal and love and care for their children and for each other. That is the foundation of a just compassionate and mature society. That is the kind of New Zealand I am working for. 
This bill takes us a little closer to it so it has my full support. I urge members to put aside the politics of this to consider the justice of this issue and to support the Civil Union Bill.