Mackey Moana: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Mackey Moana: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17526] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I want to address some of the concerns raised by the previous speaker. I start by letting him know that civil unions will not be compulsory. People will choose to have one if they want to have one. Some of the issues the member raises probably have more to do with the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill than with this legislation because of course if one does not choose to have a civil union then one will not be in one. The select committee is still looking at some aspects around de facto couples in the— 
Shane Ardern 
: Do you rule out the question I asked? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I would rule out the question the member asked if I understood it. If a de facto couple—a couple in a relationship like the one I am in—choose not to have a civil union then the Civil Union Bill will not impact on their de facto relationship. I was on the select committee that heard the submissions. It amuses me that the member seems to think that no issues were raised at the committee about power of attorney and about next of kin. Perhaps he should ask the National Party member whom he undoubtedly got that from how often that member was at the committee hearing submissions. 
If the member would like me to I will tell him some of the stories people told us about what really happens. One of the more disturbing was a situation where a couple had spent an awful lot of time and money getting a formal contract drawn up that talked about burial rites cremation rites next of kin the will enduring powers of attorney and all that stuff. When one partner passed away because of an illness the remaining partner found that because his relationship had no legal standing the family was able to challenge the contract. The court actually overturned it in his case. The select committee was quite shocked. We had thought that if one went to the time— 
Shane Ardern 
: So can you guarantee that a civil union could fix that? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: I tell Mr Ardern that if one is in a civil union with someone then it is a legally recognised relationship with next of kin. It is funny that Mr Connell is not upset about people on his side of the argument interjecting when he was on his feet every 2 seconds whenever we answered Mr Ardern’s questions—but that is fine. The Nurses Organisation talked to the committee about the difficulties nurses face when they have a family that disapproves of a relationship on one side and a partner on the other side and the person who is in hospital has not been able to sign the next-of-kin forms because he or she is unconscious on arrival is extremely ill has died or whatever. That poses problems for the hospital. It is down to the individual policies of the hospital because we have no next-of-kin laws in New Zealand. It is an extremely problematic area. 
The Nurses Organisation said that it is actually up to the staff members whom the family or the partner comes to to make that call. When the family says that a person has not been in a relationship with their son or daughter and the partner says that he or she has been in a relationship for 20 or 30 years then the hospital has to make a pretty unfair call. While the relationships bill does not address this if that couple are in a civil union it might be that the partner has to come along and show the civil union certificate and say: “Look we’re in a civil union; this is a legal recognised relationship. It is recognised in the law that we have chosen to spend our lives together.” Then that person is the next of kin and that eliminates that uncertainty. 
There will still be couples who choose not to have a civil union who will remain in de facto relationships and there will continue to be a problematic area in New Zealand law—as the select committee is finding out—about what one does when one gets into those extreme situations that people do not anticipate happening. I think that if even a small proportion of the 320000 heterosexual people living in de facto unions decided to have a civil union it would make situations like that far easier than they are today. 
There were other examples before the select committee of people who were not able to get any kind of legal certainty around the status of their relationship. They had children. There was one couple who came in where the biological mother was overseas. The partner was denied access to the child because the partner was not seen as a legal part of that family. The child was extremely distressed but the child was not allowed to make that call because of the child’s age. The family stepped in and said: “No we want to be involved.” when the family had in fact had nothing to do with that child for a very long time but the partner had done. 
Shane Ardern 
: How would civil union make a difference? 
MOANA MACKEY 
: Because I say to Mr Ardern if they had been in a civil union then that person would have been legally recognised as being in a legal relationship under New Zealand law. When one is in a de facto relationship that by its very definition means that it is outside the law. Those couples do not have a choice. Heterosexual de facto couples do. Unfortunately most of them do not think as far ahead as that or they have such an issue with marriage that they will not do that. But homosexual de facto couples do not have a choice.