Smith Lockwood: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Smith Lockwood: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17464] 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 Not many members of the current Parliament were here in 1986. As I look around the Chamber I do not see anyone who was. I was and I voted against the Homosexual Law Reform Bill and I have had to live with that ever since. In my heart at the time I knew that to vote against it was not right; that to vote to make criminals out of people who have a sexual orientation because they were born that way was not right. 
But it is easy for list members to vote purely according to their conscience; those of us who represent constituencies are not absolved of our representation responsibilities by a conscience vote as we call it. All that a conscience vote is is a vote where the party whips are not applied; we are free to vote independently and not according to party policy. Of course for constituency members it is not purely a conscience vote. Our constituencies expect us to represent them in this Parliament and that creates a huge dilemma for members wanting to be responsible to their constituents as well as to vote according to what they believe. We cannot absolve our individual responsibility to vote properly in this Chamber by simply arguing: “My constituents want me to do that so that’s what I will do.” 
I have had to live with the fact that as a new member of this Parliament I gave weighting to the way that my constituents felt in 1986. I was a new member they wanted me to vote against the Homosexual Law Reform Bill and I did. As I say I have had to live with myself ever since because in my heart I knew it was not the right thing to do. 
When the Civil Union Bill came before Parliament I wanted to support it. I did not want to kick the gay community in the guts twice—maybe even three times when we take the 1990s legislation into account as well—because I do not believe that is right. I guess the other reason why I wanted to support the Civil Union Bill is that I believe that long-term relationships are positive for society and that promiscuity leads to more problems in our society. I believe that legislation that would perhaps facilitate longer-term legal relationships longer-term legal commitments between people would have to be positive for society. But when I saw the bill that was introduced my heart sank. I knew instantly as I read it that its civil union proposal looked like marriage. As I spoke some of the words of the bill to myself it sounded like marriage and I knew I would have problems with my electorate. 
 I took the trouble of surveying my electorate—not just on this issue because I did not want to get a response just from people who felt hugely strongly about it; it was a general survey of my constituents. I have counted 4000 responses. The Rodney electorate is totally divided. Of those 4000 responses the difference between the number who voted yes and the number who voted no was 50. The question I asked was not: “Do you support the Civil Union Bill?”; it was: “Would you support legislation that facilitated same-sex couples being able to enter into long-term legal commitments with each other?”. Many of those who responded that they would support that wrote on their survey forms: “But not marriage.” 
So I have this huge difficulty as I vote on this issue. My electorate is deeply divided over it. I have taken the trouble to find out what my constituents think. They clearly do not want same-sex couples to be able to enter into marriage. Yet this bill is so like the Marriage Act. I just wish that those who are promoting this bill had thought from first principles about how we can have legislation that supports same-sex couples being able to enter into long-term legal commitments to each other. We should not judge the quality of love between people. They should be able to enter into such kinds of relationships or such kinds of commitments. But why are we faced with legislation such that when people look at it they simply see the Marriage Act in front of them with just a few words changed? 
During the debate on Part 2 I will go into this a little more. One could argue that if this legislation were changed there could be greater freedom for people to celebrate their union in whatever way they liked. There is no need to be as prescriptive as the process this legislation lays out. Yet sadly it is prescriptive and that causes some of us huge problems.