Peters Winston: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:9024. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 We have heard that none of the proponents of Supplementary Order Papers on this matter were members of the Government Administration Committee and as a consequence they did not hear the arguments. They were not part of understanding the analysis and they did not appreciate the intensity of submissions. Then we were also told that a referendum was rejected by MPs because it is good for some situations but it is a bad way of addressing human rights issues. I wonder what Abraham Lincoln would have thought in the 1860s to hear that an issue that went in the end because of its expansion—not the cause but the expansion of slavery—and the cessation of it led to the Civil War in the United States. I wonder what Abraham Lincoln this magnificent leader when it comes to human rights would have thought of such an argument. 
At the beginning of this debate last year the proponents of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill talked a lot about public opinion. One was reported as saying: “twice as many New Zealanders support marriage equality as oppose it so we can now make it law” or that “We campaigned on this.” Really? I have got the manifesto here of the party that said that. It said on this issue: “Review and update relationship and relationship property law”. That is it. With the greatest of respect please make claims in this House that can be sustained by how it was pre-warned to the electorate as to what was intended to be done. But some of us have been around long enough to know one thing: that the public on this matter is seriously concerned and it is all over the place and divided on this issue. Opponents say one thing and the proponents say something else. What we want to know is where does the majority lie in New Zealand? It should not be reposed in 121 temporarily empowered members of Parliament. That is the fundamental issue here. Then to come to the House and start disputing the efficacy of an expanded democracy where you share your views with the public of this country in this computerised age is an extremely astonishing and alarming development. 
I note that there are people who want to ignore the public and pass laws. We have seen it on asset sales and all sorts of other things but a lot of the people who were lining up for a public referendum on asset sales and Mighty River Power now say: “Oh but you cannot have it on this issue.” So we can trust the public on Mighty River Power and assets but we cannot trust them on moral issues. I will ask you again: where did some of the members of this Parliament ever attain that intellectual moral and ethical superiority where they could shamefacedly in front of the whole public and recorded by  
Hansard 
 tell New Zealanders what they think of their views? How did it happen to our democracy in 2013 that people could be so bold? No pre-election warning just a post-election onslaught. 
The select committee process has shown that the public are split. The public meetings show that the public are split. Letters to the editor say the public are split. Talkback radio social media—all indicators suggest that this is a polarising and divisive issue in the community. Everyone here knows what my view of polls is. They are so erroneous in New Zealand they are so unprofessional that these things should be banned. Internationally you get a 3 percent spread between five major pollsters and they meet to try to sort out what is wrong with their methodology. Here we have a 14 percent spread and they carry on regardless. But when a poll is within 10 percent either way then no one can tell me in this House or outside that they know what their neighbour who is the voter of this country and whom we are meant to be the servants of really thinks. So what is wrong with asking them? The work place is split. Churches are split. 
Barbara Stewart 
: That’s right. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: It is true. Inside the Church churches are split. Families are split. “Where lies the majority?” is the issue that should be the most compelling for a member of Parliament who campaigned at the last election on the principle of democracy. There is no consensus. There is no majority. There is no mandate. You know you can ridicule it by saying: “Well the New Zealand First leader wants a ‘man-date’.” and try to make out that a democratic dream is an issue of hilarity and humour or comedy. Let me tell that person who wrote that sort of thing that they would be the first victims if that was what resided in this country—a contempt for democracy itself. Yet we are here as Parliament about to totally disregard public opinion and all a referendum asks is not that you do not get to have a vote that you do not get to have a say or that you even have a majority in this House; all we ask you is to await a public referendum to endorse your claims of having a majority. Is that so bad? Can that be so wrong? Again I ask those members whether on other issues of importance they would say: “My conscience right or wrong regardless of the constituency.” 
As you know our position is well-known. We have been consistent all along on this for years. We have never got up on a stage and said that we are going to debunk that person’s view or despise that person’s view. What we have said day after day and night after night and in more public meetings than most people here have ever had—and with bigger audiences I might say—is: why do we not trust the people have a fully fledged public debate and even finance the quality of the debate so that it reaches above the blind and the bigoted to some rational and sane argument and then ask the public what they think? We stand by that policy and tonight we are repeating our call. We want to find out where the truth lies. 
I have asked people I know friends of mine and acquaintances who are not ashamed to know me who are both homosexual and lesbian what they think. I have been astonished by the answer of those who said: “Well I never asked for the civil union in law and nor am I asking for this. I am happy with what I have got.”—or to be ambushed in the middle of the parliamentary night to find out that “Now that you are living in a long-term relationship you are subject to a claim of 50 percent of your assets.” These people were never asked and they are homosexual. Perhaps they should have had a survey or a poll amongst them but I have not seen that yet. All I am hearing is people claiming to represent a certain view. If that view was correct then why were there so few actions following the passing of the Civil Union Bill? Why have so few sought that path if they have a massive majority even amongst a certain section in our society who they claim to be in support of this bill? 
To those who say it was in their election manifesto we have to say: “Well show me.” because it cannot be what I am reading. I would be hard-pressed to find any reference to this pre-2011. I have the manifesto. Nowhere in the document is there any statement of Labour’s intent for example to change the definition of marriage. It is not there. We get as I say on page 374 that commitment to review and update relationship and relationship property law whatever that means. Apparently the media did not know what it meant either. There was not one news story regarding Labour’s stance on marriage in 2011—not one. We have a report that says Labour supports gay adoption. We have reports saying Labour wants to prevent homophobia in schools but no mention of marriage equality. I am not here to criticise people other than they put this in contention when they said it. So if you are going to contend it be prepared for the examination of whether it is truth or not. No billboards no mail outs no TV ads no speeches—just a deafening silence. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Nonsense. What nonsense. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no no. Mr Goff said in July 2011 that he saw no need to redefine marriage. He was the leader of the Labour Party right up to the last election when whatever mandate or not we all got came into effect. 
Let us not forget what we are talking about when we talk about this because frankly around New Zealand are a whole lot of voters—and this is not a threat—who are going to make up their mind on this issue and I say to some of my colleagues in this Parliament that they have put in serious jeopardy the next election result. That goes for National as well. It is a funny thing is it not? In the National Party it is the list members who are going for this bill and the ones who have got a constituency seat in the main are going against it. Many of those are going for the referendum. I say one more time that if you want to survive— 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.