English Bill: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
English Bill: Civil Union Bill — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:622;Page:17527] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 I have been quite disappointed with the way the Government has failed to take this part of the bill seriously. Along with other speakers like Stephen Franks of the ACT party I have asked the Minister to explain just what rights and obligations go with a civil union. Clauses 17 and 18 allow for what is now called a “changing form of relationship” but that is what was more correctly called in the original bill “converting civil union into marriage”—or the other way around. Parliament has a right to know what the Government thinks happens to people’s rights and obligations when one converts a civil union into a marriage because we cannot tell from reading the legislation. The Government is sowing confusion by saying that this is not gay marriage—OK let us take Government members at their word; I believe they make that statement for political reasons not legal reasons—but one can convert a civil union into a marriage. So what do I tell my constituent who is in a gay partnership about what this legislation means? If my constituent wants to enter a civil union and then wants to convert that into a marriage what is involved? What are the rights and obligations? Well they are not in the bill and the Minister refuses to tell us. 
I think that that is because the Minister does not know. What was meant to happen was the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill was meant to be here. It was meant to outline by indirect means through all the changes to other statutes what would be involved as rights and obligations of a civil union. But it is not here so we do not know. When one looks at it this bill really legislates for only a ceremony. That is all it does. What the Government is doing is putting into statute a ceremony of civil union without knowing what it will lead to. We have heard various emotional pleas and statements from the Government about homophobia about their relations and about how Government members feel about all that but altering that is not primarily the job of this Chamber. The job of this Chamber is to debate this law outline its implications and make it clear to people what the results are of entering into a civil union. In that respect this debate has utterly failed. Members are no clearer now after a couple of days of debating the Committee stage about what that means than they were when they started. 
The Government ought to understand the complexities that this will create for relationships. The day after this bill is passed there will be a handful of gay couples who will go and have a civil union ceremony and there will be photos in the paper and there will be rejoicing. But the nitty-gritty of this is the implications down the track for those couples when something goes wrong and there are children and property involved—none of which is made clear here. That was not the Government’s intent. It was never the intent. I think that Parliament still does not understand what a mess this is turning into. 
The previous speaker said that civil union is not compulsory but under the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill it will be. Under that bill—when it gets here—every gay couple who are in some kind of adult relationship will have the same set of rights and obligations as a married couple. That is the thrust of the Government’s argument. It argues that human rights cannot discriminate so everyone has to have the same legal framework for their relationships. The threshold for that relationship will be quite low because if we cannot discriminate we will have to use the social welfare definition of “de facto” which is a very low threshold for determining a relationship. Which ceremony one has been through will make no legal difference when the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill comes through this Parliament. That is the intent. It is the intent of this bill that there will be civil unions which are a ceremony outlined in this bill but the legal rights and obligations will be the same regardless.