English Bill: Civil Union Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
English Bill: Civil Union Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:17641] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 This Parliament has a greater obligation to the people of New Zealand than the debate that we have had over the last couple of days. I would have to say I am pleased that my marriage at least is valid due to the tradition and sacrament of the Catholic Church and does not depend on the type of debate or legislation that we are passing today. In fact it is an irony that a generation that has spent much of its time saying that marriage the certificate and the formality does not prescribe love has suddenly decided that a certificate and a formality are the ultimate expression of human rights in New Zealand. Where Parliament has an obligation is simply to make its law clear and the bill we are voting on today will lead to a legal mess. No one else in the country has the obligation to get the law right; we do. But what happened here is that the Government failed in its policy project. We are meant to be debating two bills: the Civil Union Bill and the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. The second one is not here because the Government could not resolve all the problems that that bill creates in amending hundreds of pieces of legislation to make all relationships the same. It could not resolve the issues. So what we have here now is the horse without the cart. 
I listened to the debate carefully and took some part in it for 2 days. This Parliament does not know even now after that debate what the legal effect of a civil union is. We do not know. I asked the Minister to explain it and he never did because he cannot. I will give members just one example of the confusion. A number of speakers in favour of this legislation said that civil union is not gay marriage. They are saying that for political purposes because they do not want anyone to get the impression that civil union will be exactly the same as marriage. But when I look at the bill as reported from the Justice and Electoral Committee I find in clause 17 that the purpose of the clause is to allow couples who are married to change their relationship into a civil union and that clause 18 allows couples who have a civil union to change their relationship into a marriage. But everyone who supported this bill said it was not about gay marriage. The bill states it must be something like that because one can be the other. 
The commentary on the bill underlines that sense of direction when it states that the policy intent is to make sure that civil union is the legal equal of marriage. So what are we to make of this? I say to proponents of the bill that they have let down those people who have waited so long for a civil union as well as those people who are deeply concerned about it because we do not know what civil union is. The expression of civil union was going to be in the other legislation but it is mired in a mess of its own contradictions in the Justice and Electoral Committee. We may see it in March next year; we may not see it at all next year. It is much more controversial than this legislation and I doubt that this Government will want that bill in front of this House in election year. 
The policy intention of the Government is clear. It wants to make all adult relationships have the same legal effect—the same rights and obligations. The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill pulls together civil union—which will be a new thing if this bill passes—marriage and de facto relationships. Every New Zealander should be worried about that project—not so much the married people because their rights and obligations are relatively clear but all those young people who are testing and trying their relationships. The Government intends with the passage of this bill and the companion legislation that people will enter adult relationships in New Zealand on the Government’s terms or not at all. People who shacked up 2 months ago will end up with the same rights and obligations as someone who has been married for 20 years with four kids. 
That is why there is widespread unease about the Civil Union Bill. People have an intuition that this is part of something that is headed in the wrong direction. The legislation will not bring the world to its knees. All we are now legislating is confusion about what a civil union is and we are legislating a ceremony and a certificate. No doubt some will celebrate that as a great victory and they are welcome to it if this bill is passed. But the intuition that there is more at stake is correct. I will tell members why. 
The second reason I oppose the bill—the first reason is that it is a legal mess—is Labour’s insistence that the State should be totally neutral about every relationship. That is a new point of view for a New Zealand Government. It is not how we have done it before. The Government is so determined on neutrality that it will impose legal rights and obligations on people who never chose them. The insistence on neutrality will override the personal choices of all sorts of couples including gay couples. If the Government fulfils its project gay couples will not have the choice of civil union—they will be civil-unionised whether or not they have the ceremony. They will be covered by the de facto law. The de facto threshold will have to be the welfare threshold which is very low—cohabitation of a matter of weeks or maybe a couple of months. The Government will override all those preferences. 
When we think about this issue of being neutral we realise the proponents of this and the companion bill are determined to override the customs and practices of the people which give different significance to different relationships. It is not anti - human rights to do so; it is a recognition of the reality of how people live. Some people commit in a way that is permanent public and long term and some people do not. The community attributes different values to those relationships and why should it not? Marriage is based on a tradition of 2000 years of Christian history. Civil unions will be picked up by a handful of people and the statistics tell us that only some of them will turn out to be long-term committed relationships. That is the international experience. 
The Government goes too far with its theory of bureaucratic neutrality when it says that every relationship will be the same. The Civil Union Bill is one step in that path. I say to those who are in favour of this bill that the biggest scrap is yet to come. That will be over the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill which tries to equalise all relationships. I say to those who oppose the bill that I hope they share my view that we should have a legal structure that recognises the custom and the practice of the people but that also recognises the public benefits of the private choices people make. Long-term committed married relationships—in fact long-term committed de facto relationships—have fiscal and family benefits to the wider community. They are associated with higher levels of education and employment and with less troubled children. That is a fact not a prejudice which is what some members of the gay community keep trying to tell us. It is not a prejudice; it is not bigotry. It is how people live. If the law cannot recognise that then it is a stupid law that will be defeated. 
The Civil Union Bill on its own will not bring the sky down but the direction in which the Government is headed means that this is one more step in the wrong direction and that is why I oppose it.