Franks Stephen: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19129] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 That was a thoughtful speech made by Mr Baldock from United Future. I was almost tempted to seek leave to give him extra time in case he would have explained why having mentioned the Doha Declaration on the Family which New Zealand did not support he still keeps that Government in office. It is a very strange puzzle! 
I was also interested in Mr Donnelly’s explanation of why he is changing his vote. The reasons were sound. This bill was supposed to end discrimination instead it preserves it. But it is not the Justice and Electoral Committee that preserved this discrimination. It was in this bill from the moment it was introduced to the House. It was always intended that the discrimination remain that entitles an unmarried gay couple to keep the single benefit whereas the same heterosexual couple gets around $60 a week less. So that discrimination was always there and it was one of the reasons why I found this bill far more pernicious than the Civil Union Bill. If that bill had not been so blatantly a kick in the teeth to those who see a sacredness in marriage if it had been what France Denmark and so many other European countries and the New Zealand Law Commission recommended if it had been a registration for next of kin purposes and for other partnership purposes it would have been very churlish indeed to have opposed it. 
However the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill and the title and commencement that we are now debating highlight the very odd priorities of the Government. It wanted this anguish. It wanted this feeling of upset by the churches. I believe that one day it may work for good because it is time people woke up to how casually this Parliament has changed family law. If one goes through the select committee’s report I think there are five different places where the committee has said that the issues it discovered in looking at this bill need further work. 
The committee considered that automatic succession might not have been contemplated by people in de facto relationships and that this would be better dealt with in a specific review of succession law. It recommended that evidential privileges and immunities not be automatically extended to include de facto partners as a full review of the Evidence Act is being undertaken. It believed that further work should be undertaken in respect of any proposal to include a next of kin register or to include relationships that were not in the nature of marriage or civil union. 
In relation to age the committee said it had encountered a variety of provisions and recommended the Government reinstate its consideration of the age of majority and the ages contained in various enactments and regulatory instruments. Under the heading “Issues recommended for reference to the Law Commission” the committee recommended the Law Commission to further assess any remaining inequities between de facto couples and couples who are married or in a civil union. 
In other words this bill is premature. We looked at a whole host of issues raised by the ridiculous notion that we should be eliminating distinctions between a status deliberately and overtly chosen by people and a status drifted into or deliberately and consciously not chosen—in other words de facto people not marrying. But instead of the select committee coming back and saying: “Let’s do the work before the bill progresses.” the bill is being rushed through. 
 When I say rushed it is being rushed. If we look at some of the bills on the Order Paper that this bill has taken priority over they include Mr Goff’s Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill—he started on that legislation in 1997 and it will not be passed in time—the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill which was reported back in July 2004; the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) which was reported back in October 2004; the Police Amendment Bill (No 2) which has not been touched by this Parliament since debate on it was interrupted on 27 November 2001; and the Independent Police Complaints Authority Amendment Bill which was reported back on 17 November 2003. And we are rushing this bill through. The select committee has expressly identified all the untidy loose ends and all the issues it raises about the way we approach families and relationships but instead the bill is going through. Why? It is going through so that in the last week of April there can be some high-profile television that will further enrage those who feel that a sacred institution has been hijacked and it will delight those to whom the Government wants to say “Thank you”. 
I believe April was chosen because it is judged by the Government which has made more use of polling calculated spin-doctoring and psychological manipulation of the electorate than any Government before it that it is about the right distance before the election for the worst of the outrage to fade from the memories of those who are upset but not too far for the gratitude not to last. We will find that in fact the interest will fade. I do not share the confidence of United Future that this will be a burning issue. I do not think it will at all. I think that the traditional allies of the Labour Government particularly the establishment Churches will quickly forget as they have forgotten so many earlier insults. They were not even aware for example that it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of marital status. It came as a real surprise when I proposed an amendment to this bill that would at least have eliminated that provision because this bill ignores that provision in the Human Rights Act. This bill patently thinks that was ludicrous because the select committee went through all the provisions and decided that it was proper to discriminate and a blanket approach had no foundation in principle; nor does it have any foundation in morality. 
By rushing this bill through now and having a commencement date that in the case of the Government’s friends is deferred for 2 years to 2007 and in the case of the other provisions takes effect by the end of April the Government makes very plain the cynical calculation that went into this legislation and how deliberate was the offence it has caused. But I predict that unless someone with more spine than United Future manages to keep alive the concerns about what is being done to family law it certainly will not be an election issue. If United Future can suppress all its anxiety enough to vote day after day to support this Government—and not just on matters of confidence; it has been supporting the Government on matters that have nothing whatsoever to do with confidence—it will manage when the time comes to forget that this legislation generated outrage. 
The ACT party has approached this—not because we expect to receive votes out of it but because we know that this issue will be forgotten—by trying to look at what principles should underlie the law that governs relationships. For example the bill should not be coming in as stated in the commencement clause on a whole series of different dates to be appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council or specified throughout it should be coming in at a time when everyone knows that it has started. But the Government cannot do that because it is not anxious for people to know that the real commencement date of much of this legislation has been postponed long enough to fix it up. 
The select committee looked at the way this bill interacts with social security law and with the welfare system and stated: “There is a two-year lead-in period to the extension of coverage to same-sex de facto couples so this should enable the government to address the matter.” In other words this is not even intended to be law. This is a holding pattern. We are voting for a holding pattern so that the Government can go back to the drawing board and have another think and what is in this bill is not even likely to be what the law becomes. The Government is trifling with Parliament. It is treating legislation as a mere convenience a set of slogans. It is something one puts up before the election knowing that after the election one will come back in before it takes effect and change it. How will the Government change it? We do not know. I put a set of what I thought were coherent principles into the report. I believe that it is appropriate where a union creates children that the children have an interest in their parents being obliged to share.