Alexander Marc: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Alexander Marc: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17460] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 We have heard an awful lot in the past about human rights but this bill is really all about extending human rights. But it is really about scratching an itch and turning it into legislation. It is about legitimating a series of wants. People stick up their hands and say: “I want my relationship to be legitimated by the State. Make a law for me. Give me a civil union.” Somebody else will turn round and talk about a man and two women or two men and one woman and so on. They will stick up their hands and say: “This is what I want.” and they will try to ask for that relationship to be legitimated. We have lost the plot. We have marriage de facto relationships single people divorced partners and now civil union. How many more categories of adults do we need? We will carry on to a ridiculous point where we will have a tailor-made category for every single adult in this country and the Government will sanction it. It is mad. It is all in the name of so-called human rights. It is absolute bollocks. 
This bill is about wants. It is about saying to people that just because they want something it will be legitimated. It is an absolute nonsense. It makes no sense whatsoever. We have here civil union which is nothing more than gay marriage. I would prefer civil union to come out of the closet and call itself “gay marriage”. Just widen marriage if that is really what people want to do. But no because the Government does not think that the public of New Zealand will accept that it can reproduce it and call it something else and legitimate that relationship anyway. 
The odd thing about it is that we have countries around the world that quite legitimately have seen fit to have polygamous relationships. Those relationships have endured for thousands of years. But instead of looking at that and maybe bringing it into our orbit of legitimacy through the State we are jumping the gun and looking at a very small proportion of the population of this country who will wake up one day and say: “Hey turn my want into a right.” 
That makes no sense to me at all. The fact is if gay people want to have a legitimised relationship all they have to do is call a marriage celebrant and have a ceremony. They can have around them the people who matter to them and enjoy the party. If someone wants to have an authority over another’s estate or body if that person is in hospital he or she can go to a lawyer and have a document drawn up. We do not need the State’s involvement. 
I am personally against de facto relationships. I do not see that the State should be involved in trying to determine the qualitative aspects of any relationship. People either want to get married or they do not. The State should just butt out. It is nobody’s business at all. The reason why the Government ought to be involved with marriage? The simple answer is that the natural consequence of marriage happens to be children—overwhelmingly so. For that reason and that reason alone the State ought to be involved. Children are not a natural consequence of gay relationships. If gay people do have children in their relationships guardianship laws provide for that. They do not need an alternative to marriage. There is no necessity for it. 
 So the idea of dressing up human wants as human rights is nothing more than ideology. It is self-serving legislation to confer a measure that some people will feel grateful for and in turn reward the Government at the ballot box. It is nothing short of that. There is no urgency for this measure. I do not see people marching up and down the streets demanding the right to have civil unions. But the Government has decided to include this on its agenda for no specific purpose. 
There are an awful lot of issues out there that we should be concerning ourselves with. Indeed 92 percent of the population told us they want tougher sentencing and for victims to be at the heart of our criminal justice system. The Government has done nothing about that. It did not listen to the demands of 92 percent of the population. I have not seen people marching up and down the streets demanding civil unions. The public does not want this bill. It is not necessary. This is a clear-cut agenda by a small group of individuals within the Labour caucus who decided they wanted to scratch an itch and legitimise civil unions through the State. That is all it is. It is legitimating a human want by means of legislation. It is unnecessary.