Cunliffe David: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Cunliffe David: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17528] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of State) 
: 
 I thank the member who has just resumed his seat because he does draw attention to the important point that Parliament would not be doing its job on this bill if it were to get excessively hung up on broader issues—for example those of homosexual law reform—at the expense of looking at the bill. 
It is time that we ask what this bill is not about. Is it about creating gay marriage? Clearly it is not. Marriage remains solely available to a man and a woman. The Civil Union Bill does not alter the Marriage Act of 1955. It simply enables couples who do not wish to marry or cannot marry to have their relationships recognised at law. There has been a fair degree of comment from the Churches around the country about the fact that the Christian concept of marriage is something that should be separate and different from a civil union. It seems to me that is patently true and this bill creates a positive and creative opportunity for Churches to say exactly what that difference is. If it is a sacred covenant that goes above and beyond a matter of contract law or legislative provision then let the Churches say what the difference is. 
The next argument is that this bill is simply about gay rights. Again I think that a factual analysis shows that is not the case. The law currently differentiates between people according to their marital status. A number of legal rights and responsibilities apply to only those who are married couples. That is potentially discriminatory and this bill is one way of addressing that discrimination. 
It has been argued that the bill affects only a tiny minority of New Zealanders. Well that is not true either because one in five New Zealanders are currently living in a relationship where they have chosen not to marry. That is over 330000 people who are potentially or directly affected by this bill. 
The next argument is that this has all happened very quickly but that is clearly not true either. The Human Rights Act was passed 11 years ago and it outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2001 this Government announced that it agreed that laws should be applied equally. 
There is an argument that New Zealand is leading some kind of strange social engineering experiment. Well that is not true either because many other countries have preceded us in adopting non-discriminatory civil union type of arrangements—for example Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Greenland Hungary Iceland Norway and Sweden to name a few. 
There is an argument that people will be able to be married and in a civil union at the same time. The answer is that no they will not. Here I would like to pick up on a point that the Hon Bill English made in referring to the issue of changing the form of a relationship. I think the Justice and Electoral Committee’s work is instructive. If we turn to page 6 of the very detailed select committee report we see an extensive discussion of the amendment to change the reference to “converting” a relationship from a marriage to a civil union to “changing form of” the relationship. The amendment was made to preserve the fact that a civil union and a marriage are different things but not to imply that in fact the relationship between the two people has to cease to exist in order for one to be converted to the other. But what is instructive in the select committee’s report is that the ongoing distinction between the two was broadly agreed to in the committee and remains pertinent to the House. 
Finally the argument is made that this bill should not proceed because the majority of New Zealanders are against it. Well the  
Herald- 
DigiPoll of 2 October found the opposite: 56.4 percent of New Zealanders were in favour of civil unions and only 39.3 percent were against. The email traffic to my parliamentary office has been broadly in favour of this bill passing—not I might add simply because it provides equal rights to homosexual New Zealanders but because it removes discrimination that could apply perniciously against various New Zealanders in various states of relationships. 
I am pleased that this discussion has got over the homosexuality issue as we have proceeded to debate the text of the bill. I hope that will continue because the more it does so I think the less threatening the bill will become to members opposite and to New Zealanders and the more sensible it will be in removing existing discriminatory provisions.