Franks Stephen: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Franks Stephen: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17603] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I am supporting the strike-down referendum proposal in this part of the debate the title debate for two reasons: first it might give the population a chance to find out what the bill really does which is almost nothing except to direct a pantomime ceremony and second it takes at face value the claims of its supporters. We have heard them tonight. In fact we have heard them all day arguing that this bill is about respecting our fellow New Zealanders. This bill is about not denigrating people’s lifestyle choices or if they are not choices the way they are born. 
If this bill is passed by this House which is not hugely respected it will not carry the respect of the community. The respect of the community would come if the bill is passed because New Zealanders say they wanted to confer that endorsement. I think there might be a lot of New Zealanders who would do that. I suspect if that had been a requirement the bill would be quite different. It would actually do what claimants said it will do—remove disabilities and recognise that people who choose to live together in a sharing and stable committed relationship do deserve to be able to opt in to the rights presently enjoyed by married couples. 
But this bill does not do anything of that. It does not require any kind of stable long-term commitment to a shared life. In that respect that is because marriage has been gutted and that is because the State now says that marriage is just one of the few contracts that is absolutely unenforceable. It is one of the few contracts where the State will not even allow spouses to contract about damages until each has spent about $500 or $600 on lawyers and even then the State will overturn it. 
So this bill and the debate about it are about different visions of morality or respect. I think that if New Zealanders had a chance to vote the leader writers in the papers might actually do a bit more research and see what it really is about. But what has driven me to speak yet again is the contempt for morality that I have seen from the bill’s proponents. I say that not because I share the concern that this bill will make any difference whatsoever to my marriage or to anyone else’s marriage—I think marriage now has been emptied of content for a very long time—but because of what the Labour Party claims here. Morality and culture matter enormously and we do not really know how they are created and what erodes them. Unless one is racist one does not think that a 38-year life expectancy in Botswana Rhodesia Zimbabwe South Africa or any other African country is a result of Blacks being somehow inferior or more susceptible. It is very clear that it is because the cultural norms in those countries have contributed to corruption to an inability to govern and to a huge spread of AIDS—people’s sexual morality also contributes. Promiscuity and prostitution as a norm actually make for Africa’s condemnation. It is serious. It is a dreadful price to pay to have that kind of outcome. There are millions of orphans. That situation comes because of culture and we do not know why it is so much more severe in Africa than elsewhere. We do know that there ought to be a bit of humility about what contributes to cultural norms how they are built and how they get destroyed. 
Here on my right are the Greens who are terrified of a little bit of contamination with GE. That is basically superstitious because science does not support them. Yet these people with Sue Kedgley beside me were scoffing at what she saw was superstition on the part of Christians who fear the impact of this bill. As I said I do not share that fear but I believe fervently that they have every right to continue to express it. What I do fear is the agenda that lies behind this bill which is: “When we get this bill passed we will make it impossible for people to express those views.” That is what lies behind this bill. This is the hate-speech thing; this is the Human Rights Act thing. Once this bill is through a church will not be able to refuse to hire out its hall for one of those ceremonies. 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Absolute rubbish! 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The member should read the Human Rights Act. When I asked to have an assurance that if this bill went through we would have some protection from that kind of outcome Labour Party members said no.