Smith Murray: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Smith Murray: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17441] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 Some of the submitters who came to the Justice and Electoral Committee and supported the bill said that they wanted civil unions for different-sex people because of the culture they saw surrounding marriage—a culture that they thought was religious and patriarchal. However they failed to note that the Marriage Act does nothing in terms of culture or religious connotations and neither does the Civil Union Bill. The difference is though that civil unions as we are proposing them are devoid at the moment—at their start—of any cultural or religious connotations. 
Marriage by contrast has had hundreds of years in which a culture has developed around it. That culture comes not by way of the Marriage Act but by way of society’s understanding of what marriage provides. Similarly the Civil Union Bill provides no culture around it and it is as open as a void in order for a culture to develop around it. 
But when we look at even the things that were criticised by those submitters in terms of the culture surrounding marriage we find those things are changeable. The patriarchal nature of marriage really comes down to the relationship people have between them. Whether the husband dominates the relationship is really a matter for the husband and the wife to work out. It is not something that we as a society impose. There is no patriarchal nature to a marriage other than what the couple themselves accept or what one partner imposes on the other—whether patriarchal or matriarchal. Similarly in terms of religious connotations we now have several marriage ceremonies which can occur without any religious connotation whatsoever or with as much as the couple choose. Therefore any religious connotation to marriage again comes down to what the couple want in terms of their relationship. 
In essence therefore the difference between marriage and civil union does not come down to the nature of the bill that is passed but simply to what the couple create for themselves. All we have done in this bill is substitute the term “civil union” for the word “marriage” and that is at the heart of the argument that the two are no different. However marriage over hundreds of years has come up with two very important cultural norms that surround it. One is that it is intended to be a lifelong relationship—at least at its commencement—and secondly to be an exclusive relationship. 
We do not know whether the Civil Union if it passes will in fact develop those sorts of provisions but we encourage lifelong and exclusive relationships because we believe as a society that for the nurturing of the next generation it is in the best interests of society that there are stable environments in which to raise children. The trouble with the Civil Union Bill is that we do not know whether that culture will be there. We do not know whether in fact we will have lifelong exclusive relationships for the nurturing of children. 
The select committee considered that matter and we were going to put in the purpose clause a provision that said that part of the purpose of civil unions was to recognise and support stable genuine relationships between two people who wish to acknowledge freely and publicly their lifelong and exclusive commitment to each other. However the Greens strongly objected to that provision. They did not want civil unions to have any suggestion that they were to be lifelong relationships and they did not want civil unions to have any suggestion that they were to be exclusive relationships. Clearly what the Greens wanted was that civil unions could be seen to be transitional relationships—as far as the couples who entered into them were concerned if that is what they chose—and that they could be open relationships so that couples in civil unions were free to have sexual relationships with people outside those unions if they wanted to. 
The Greens did not want Parliament dictating or even suggesting in this bill that there should be a lifelong or exclusive relationship—and that is the problem that we have with civil unions: they have no culture surrounding them. We are opening up to all sorts of interpretations the environment in which we are going to raise the next generation and we have nothing there to cover for it. It was interesting that the select committee having decided that there should be this purpose clause moved away from it on the final day of consideration.