Chadwick Steve: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Chadwick Steve: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17609] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am pleased to get an opportunity to take a call because I believe that I am hearing extreme views in the Chamber tonight and I want to put a moderate and probably rather boring view on the Civil Union Bill. It certainly has not excited the passions in my community and I am an electorate MP who sees people every day. There is nothing too salacious or sexy in my life story. I do not have a Pandora’s box I can open that the media will love. However I have a view of the world that I think is entirely balanced and valid. I come from a family that showed us love and generous inclusive and tolerant values of the world and they were also open to intelligent and free debate. So I am probably a moderate liberal one might say. 
When listening to the debate I found it interesting to hear people say that there are no next-of-kin rights that we need to give protections via the law in this Civil Union Bill. I can assure members that in my years of experience as a nurse I saw many homosexual couples denied the rights to have a say as next of kin at the time of death and I found those situations incredibly sad. I am glad to see that those provisions will be protected in this bill. I also had a personal experience when my husband and I went to put a notice in the paper about the birth of our first son. The advertisement should have read: “To Steve and John a son”. We were thrilled about it but the paper would not publish it because it thought that we were a couple of homosexuals. We had to show our wedding certificate to prove that we were not before that notice went into the paper. 
I come from a strong human rights framework where the world looks at eliminating discrimination especially against minority groups. I remind the Committee that in 1994 and 1999 we were signatories to a couple of major covenants that were committed to recognising the diversity of the family developing policies and laws that better supported the family contributing to its stability and taking into account the plurality of all its forms. National when in Government signed up to the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 and 1999. Other conventions and protocols also protect the rights of children under United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which the National Government signed. It said that children should not be discriminated against on the basis of their parents’ status. We have forgotten that we have signed global covenants and global human rights laws that protect those values and here we are today relitigating this. 
I am hearing arguments about values that frankly make me sick. As if those who come from a Christian basis have a greater ownership of values than those of us who are agnostic but who care and are inclusive and respectful! They have no greater cache on values because they have God on their side. We do not need to be told. We have a brain. I do not need to be told how to vote on these issues by leadership in the Catholic Church or the Destiny Church. My point of view comes from life experience. I am tired of the hypocrisy in this House. I have heard MPs speak out against this bill and I know what they are hiding behind. We know that they themselves need to look at their own hearts their own lives and their own values about how they treat their wives partners or look at their own sexuality. 
New Zealand and the world looks at us as MPs and thinks: “Look at yourselves honestly and live an honest life and reflect it in the way you vote in this House.” It is incredibly sad when we see and hear sexual and lewd innuendo in the House. We saw it yesterday when Mr Brown was worried about his microphone. When people have to revert to such lewdness I always wonder what they are hiding. As individuals what are we hiding? What are we worried about? This bill is absolutely a victimless bill. There is no victim. There is no harm when two individuals of same sex want to live a life that hurts nobody else in society. I say give it to them. I am proud of this bill. I will put up with the rubbish in my community from an Anglican canon who said that we spell disaster in all directions. I do not mind.