Franks Stephen: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Relationships (Statutory References) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19071] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill is the companion bill to the Civil Union Act. Without it the Civil Union Act does not mean a thing. This bill puts into 100 or so other Acts and into many regulations the references to civil union that make the Civil Union Act more than simply a pantomime of marriage. 
In this debate on Part 1 I want to address three things. Firstly unlike most bills a series of commencement dates are scattered through this part. They are quite curious. The commencement dates of some of the extensions in this legislation are very odd. In effect they show that despite the Government’s policy that it will now treat same-sex couples in the same way as heterosexual married couples and that it wants to treat de facto couples wherever possible—or wherever this Parliament would allow—in the same way as married couples it has drawn a curious distinction. We still have and will for at least 2 more years a privilege for same-sex couples in welfare law. 
Same-sex couples will not be forced to go on to the married or de facto benefit. Same-sex couples will be able to claim benefits as if they were single and I understand from the Justice and Electoral Committee evidence that that relates to about an extra $60 per week for a couple in that position. The reason offered is that they will need time to adjust. That is from the Government that compulsorily married people 2 years ago when it changed matrimonial property law. It did not give those people time to adjust. The only adjustment people could make there was to bust up their relationship. I find that provision offensive. If we were truly attempting to remove discrimination and treat people equally same-sex couples should be taking the bad with the good—the detriments and obligations along with the benefits. 
I think it is disgraceful because the gay couples—friends of mine—who spoke to me about this said that they thought it was demeaning and that they did not want it. They thought that this bill should be making a strong statement of non-discrimination. Instead the Government has justified this little extra perk for the people it wants to favour with this bill in a way that if I were sitting on the Government benches I would be absolutely ashamed of. It is such a small thing but it is so significant in terms of its symbolism and it so undermines the claim that this legislation treats people equally. 
I also want to mention the enormous range of changes made in the schedules that are authorised by this part. Clause 92 the last in this part states: “The Acts specified in Schedule 13 are amended in the manner set out in that schedule.” When we look at clause 13 we find that the Human Rights Act is being amended. That Act has marital status as one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. It stuns me that marital status got into the Human Rights Act without an absolute uproar from everyone concerned about the status of our family law. Every church should have been outraged about the inclusion of marital status as a prohibited ground of discrimination. It is hard to think of how any society upholds what it regards as sensible favourable or desirable arrangements without allowing ordinary people to show preference to those arrangements. 
The fact that people may want not to associate with those in relationships that they disapprove of should not be something in criminal law or that penalties can be imposed on. It is a very real problem in human rights law for the State to make that discrimination. I could perfectly well understand the Government supporting a provision in the Human Rights Act stating that the State must be neutral about relationships and that it should not pick favourites. 
I could understand an argument on that basis. I may not agree with it if it were extended to every type of relationship but I could certainly understand the argument. But it is utterly wrong for the State to say that it will put into the hands of commissars on the Human Rights Review Tribunal or the Human Rights Commission the power to punish those who want to draw distinctions in their social or business life on the basis of the kinds of relationships they think are best for society. Therefore I have an amendment that would change the effect of clause 92 by reinstating the power for people to choose to favour the forms of relationships they believe are good for society. 
The amendment is very simple. It would simply remove a paragraph in section 21 of the Human Rights Act so that marital status once again became something that people were entitled to take into account when deciding whom they wanted to associate with employ or favour. More than that it would protect churches from for example being forced to make their church halls available to conduct a civil union ceremony. 
 This bill does nothing to protect that elementary liberty. There are thousands of celebrants and hundreds of thousands of locations for carrying out civil unions and nothing should allow people who oppose civil unions to apply force to stop them. On the other hand nothing in our law should force those who believe that civil unions are wrong to be associated with them against their will. My amendment says quite clearly that those who think such relationships are wrong should be free to continue to argue that and to show in the way they live that they mean their beliefs. 
It is completely wrong in a society that values freedom for the provision that bans that form of discrimination to remain in the Human Rights Act and it is wrong to have no protection against all the other busybody agencies that might decide to impose the Labour Cabinet’s fashionable views of morality and relationships and to punish people whose views are different and who want to express their views in their employment or other relationships. The proposed amendment which would have effect by virtue of clause 92 is one that everyone who believes in freedom should support—particularly those who adhere to the form of classical liberal freedom that states: “I may oppose your views but I will defend to the death your right to express them and to live by them as long as you are not coercive to those who think differently.” 
Part 1 is also the part that effects a whole range of other amendments that have been modified in a very intuitive way by the select committee. The select committee realised almost as soon as it started this task that if we adhered to the Human Rights Act view that discrimination on the grounds of marital status is wrong we could not really do justice to this bill. This bill in its introduced form simply stated that marriage makes no difference. It stated that de facto relationships whether they are short or long are the equivalent of marriage and that that was to be written into the law. The select committee changed that but we did so in a very intuitive way. We went through the bill looking at each bit and each member of the committee applied what he or she considered to be a common-sense view of the purpose of the provision and decided whether it should be included. 
The bill should have contained a clear statement of principle. It should have said very clearly that the choice of competent adults will be respected. Those who choose not to marry or who choose to enter into a civil union should have the dignity of their choice respected by the law. This bill should not be overriding those choices. The most it should perhaps be doing is saying that where there are children of a union—whether it is a union blessed by the Church or by a registry office or whether it is a civil union—the children are entitled to stability and to some commitment from their parents. They ought to know that there is enough sharing of assets to justify—