Prebble Richard: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — In Committee 
Prebble Richard: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19087] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) 
: 
 I was motivated to seek the call after the last contribution. As a stepfather I had not realised that this bill was writing me out of the Care of Children Act and that even a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee no longer knows how I am supposed to be described. 
Stephen Franks 
: I couldn’t tell you. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: He could not tell me. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us. The explanation given to the Committee is so extraordinary that I am sure it is correct: the officials have programed me into the computer under a new name and it would cost them too much to take it out. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a stepfather or a stepmother. Who on earth are those people who are deciding that they can make this assault on our language and on our values? Which Government member last election got up in a campaign hall and said that by the way Labour was going to abolish the terms “stepfather” and “stepmother”? 
Peter Brown 
: I’m a stepfather. Am I abolished? 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Apparently he is. 
Murray Smith 
: And the sooner the better! 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: He is now told by United Future that the sooner the better. 
I believe that the Ministry of Justice is running amok. I do not think the Minister has a total grip on what the department is doing. I have noticed that no matter which party is in Government the department puts forward its politically correct views. I am told that at the select committee even when members of Parliament said they represented ordinary New Zealanders and would like to make some changes to the bill the officials came back to the select committee and continued to argue for their politically correct views. Whom do they think they represent? How do they have the right to do that? 
I ask the Government when it got a mandate for this change. We hear from the United Future members that they will stop Labour from making it after the election. I say yeah right just like they were going to stop it from having gay marriage! I ask the Committee and the United Future member who was speaking just before the break—who went through some elaborate talk about how the courts should decide de facto relationships—what business or right is it of any Government if two adults decide not to use the legal provisions for marriage and now for civil union then to decide to impose legal obligations upon them? The only reason for that can be that we think those people are not capable of making their own decisions. Well the law is quite clear. If we want to make decisions on behalf of our partner we had better marry him or her or have a civil union. 
I am staggered to see the United Future members get up and make these arguments on behalf of de facto couples and say that there ought to be some sort of legal relationship. Indeed I am amazed that Peter Dunne is voting for this bill. As I say I voted for the Civil Union Bill. If people want to have a civil union they can have it. But I am absolutely voting against these measures which say to people who have chosen not to marry and not to have a civil union that despite that they will be regarded as being married. These are Margaret Wilson sorts of marriages—oh no she is now the Speaker; well whoever it is in the Government. Actually I think it is the Ministry of Justice officials who think we in this Parliament know better than couples and should impose legal responsibilities on people who happen to live together. I say we have absolutely no moral right to do that—none whatsoever. If people do not want to be in those legal relationships where is our moral authority to impose that upon them? If they ought to have them—and I think that two adults living together who have children ought to have proper legal relationships—then what is wrong with marriage? If they do not like marriage for goodness’ sake we have now given them a civil union. 
There is no moral right whatsoever to do what is in this bill and how the leader of the United Future party who says he is favour of family values can be voting for this measure which seems to me to be absolutely opposed to everything I have seen in that party’s newspaper advertisements is just beyond me. However I do understand how United Future can claim to be a broad church party—it covers the whole spectrum.