Smith Murray: Civil Union Bill — Second Reading 
Smith Murray: Civil Union Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:17397] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee I want to begin by thanking the thousands and thousands of New Zealanders who took the time and made the effort to make submissions on this bill. For many it was the first time they had ever made submissions to a select committee. As we know 91 percent of them opposed this bill. One of those who opposed this bill was a highly respected priest of the New Zealand Catholic Church an older man clearly with wisdom and experience and definitely not extreme. He said that the decision on this bill was the most important decision we have made in his lifetime and more important than New Zealand’s decision as to whether to go to war against Hitler. He was right. In this bill we are tampering with a fundamental institution of our society indeed a fundamental institution of all societies worldwide—East or West; rich or poor; Christian Muslim or other religion; capitalist or socialist—and an institution that is as old as time itself and predates the State. I am talking about the institution of family and in particular the institution of marriage. 
Given that this bill deserves extreme caution. Having said that I have to say there are genuine issues relating to gay and lesbian couples that Parliament needs to address. These revolve especially around the easy recognition of their relationships by third parties Government agencies in particular. Many of the submitters who opposed the bill recognised that there was a need for something such as a next-of-kin register in order to cater for those genuine concerns. 
Other countries have indeed addressed these issues and those countries are listed in the select committee’s report. However what is significant about those countries but is not stated by the supporters of this bill is that except for Belgium the Netherlands and some Canadian provinces all have adopted a registration scheme that is not ceremonial and is clearly not a replica of marriage. Further the purpose of those schemes has largely been to protect property rights something that has occurred in New Zealand since the 2001 amendments to the Property (Relationships) Act. In fact a large number of those countries—Australia Denmark Finland Germany Iceland Lichtenstein Norway Spain Sweden Switzerland the UK France and Hungary—do not allow same-sex marriage and only France and Hungary have registration schemes that apply to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. 
 New Zealanders accept that some sort of partnership registration scheme may be appropriate—something akin to filing a declaration of partnership and something that does not have ceremonial aspects and other similarities to marriage. 
Today I received a letter written—unprecedentedly—by the joint efforts of the president of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference Vision Network of New Zealand and the Muslim Association of Canterbury which showed clearly their support for human and civil rights to be upheld and for some support for legislation that gave rights but that did not interfere with the institution of marriage. 
In the committee’s report there is a list of five differences between civil union and marriage: that a civil union applies to both men and women and same-sex partners where marriage concerns men and women solely; that civil unions will not use the term “husband and wife”; that there will be only one process for celebrants not three; that the age of consent for 16 and 17-year-olds by their guardians have variations to the age of consent for marriage; and that there is a provision for the solemnisation of overseas relationships. 
Those cosmetic differences pale into insignificance compared with the overwhelming number of similarities that there are in this bill between civil unions and marriage. These provisions include: that both require the same form of licence; that both require a celebrant or registrar; that they provide for similar notices of objection; that the form of words used must state the identity and intention of the parties; that they have similar prohibited degrees of consanguinity and relationship; that they have the same ability to apply to the courts to sanction close relationships for civil unions as marriages; that there are the same provisions for an injunction against simultaneous relationships—that is bigamy; that the age restrictions are the same—that is they are restricted to under the age of 18; that they both have the ability for the court to waive that age restriction; and that they both have the ability for parents and guardians to consent to 16 and 17-year-olds entering into such relationships. 
The offence provisions and penalties are the same. The ability to declare the relationship void is the same in each case and on a similar basis. There are similar provisions for there being no defect where formalities or procedures have been wrong. The Family Court is given jurisdiction over both. The Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages is given jurisdiction in respect of both relationships to maintain a register of civil unions as well as the current register of marriages and they have identical registration processes. 
Finally the process for dissolution of the relationships is the same and the criteria for dissolution are the same. Given that lengthy list I ask how anyone can possibly say that civil unions are not same-sex marriages. 
There were two interesting points made by submitters who supported the bill that I took some note of—two interesting comments that came through. One was from those involved in the drafting of this bill. They told us that the decision to go for civil union rather than same-sex marriage was because it was felt that same-sex marriage was not at this point politically sustainable and therefore the “lower” option of a civil union should be pursued. I cover in my minority report my belief that this legislation is only a stage in the process of having same-sex marriage. 
The second very interesting point made by a number of submitters who supported the bill was that they did not really want a legal form of recognition. In fact that is reflected in overseas statistics where the take-up of relationship recognition and relationship registration has been small compared with the number of people living in those sorts of relationships. What they really want is for Parliament to sanction same-sex relationships so that the public will change their attitude towards same-sex couples. What they want is approval from the community at large. They want Parliament to force that change by forcing the legislation. 
However legislation alone will not bring about that change and other countries that have legislated have found that other steps are then necessary in order to try to do that. Two of those are particularly looming before us which we can see from overseas examples. The first is the education process. Once we have legislation that equates same-sex and opposite-sex relationships school curricula will have to reflect that. Children as young as primary-aged children will be taught that same-sex relationships are just as valid as opposite-sex relationships and that having a mum and a dad is optional. Two dads and two mums are exactly the same and traditional family life as we have known it is no longer of relevance. 
Of more importance though is the repression of talk against homosexuality which is a repression of freedom of speech. In Canada on 28 April 2004 the Parliament passed a bill that effectively criminalised speech or writings that criticised homosexuality. Anything deemed to be homophobic can be punished by 6 months in prison or by other severe penalties. A man who owned a printing press in Canada was fined $3400 for refusing to print stationery for a homosexual activist organisation. And so the list goes on. A Saskatchewan newspaper and a private citizen were fined in 2001 for publishing an advertisement listing Bible verses about homosexuality. In Sweden a sweeping hates-crime law was passed that forbade any criticism of homosexuality and last year a pastor was arrested at a church in Sweden and charged with hate speech against homosexuals in a sermon about homosexuality. The prosecutor said that collecting Bible quotes on that topic as the pastor did made that hate speech. 
That is the door we are opening and there are signals already in New Zealand society that we are heading in the same direction: the current push for hate-speech legislation the astonishingly intolerant and bigoted attack directed at a Christian group lobbying for the bill by a recent appointee to the Human Rights Review Tribunal the Advertising Standards Complaints Board’s decision last October against the Tui’s advertisement: “There’s nothing wrong with Miriam—yeah right.” This is the door we are opening with this legislation by providing a civil union that is a marriage in all but name. We need to rethink this. Let us meet the need for next of kin and other rights without attacking traditional marriage. This bill goes too far.