Mackey Moana: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Mackey Moana: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17442] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I want to take a call on the purpose clause of this bill. I certainly hope Brian Connell will continue to front the opposition to this bill as he is giving plenty of fodder to those of us who agree with it. I offer my congratulations to Mr Donnelly and I hope his daughter’s wedding is a wonderful occasion for his entire family. 
I want to talk a little bit about the implications for the largest sector of society that stands to benefit from this bill and that of course is heterosexuals. I have talked to a lot of my friends about this bill and I want to bring to the attention of the Committee the fact that things are changing in New Zealand society. It has already happened to a large extent. It is the result of various changes in law and various changes in the belief systems held by young New Zealanders today. Far from those changes being detrimental or destructive if we accept them and if we learn what changes this Parliament needs to make to accommodate those changes in New Zealand society then we will see that in fact they do not need to be the destructive forces that many in this House would have us believe them to be. 
One of those changes is the fact that a number of young New Zealanders are waiting longer to get married and a number are deciding not to get married or are not making a decision not to get married but are ending up staying in de facto relationships. In fact there are over 320000 New Zealanders now living in de facto relationships. As one of those 320000 living in a de facto relationship I say that my relationship is committed stable and absolutely monogamous and I will not have members of this House say that just because they are married their relationship means more to them than my relationship does to me because that is simply not true. 
There are a number of forces in play in respect of this issue. One of them is that women now want to be financially independent before marriage and that has delayed the age of marriage quite considerably. Another reason is that many of our generation have seen the break-up of marriages. Research out of the United States from the national institute of marriage which is hardly a left-wing organisation has shown that far from young people believing that marriage is irrelevant they actually hold it in far higher regard than previous generations did. They no longer see it as just something that people have to do. They no longer believe that what a young woman should do when she finishes school is find a good husband from a good family and settle down. Now young people want to find their soulmates and settle into marriage. That has brought an interesting issue of expectation into the marriage debate that I do not believe we have really addressed. 
A number of my friends who are in de facto relationships have told me that they would like to have a civil union. Although members of this Committee might not understand or like the fact that people do not want to get married the fact is that just because we say they should get married does not mean that they will. Their reasons for not wanting to marry are varied but I have to say that the main reason is that they cannot separate out the institution of marriage from religion. I know that people say one can have a civil marriage but those young people would say it is still a marriage. One young girl who came and talked to me told me she had grown up in a very strict religious household. She said that it had been awful and she had had a horrible time growing up. She said: “Do you know what my mother said to me? She said she did not mind whether I had a civil marriage because I would still be married in the eyes of God.” She told me: “For me that sealed it: I will never get married.” But she said she would like to be able to have a civil union because she wants to be able to walk down the aisle and she wants to be able to have the solemnisation. She does want all of that but she wants it to be secular. 
I believe that had we been looking at amendments to the Marriage Act today to allow same-sex couples to marry we would not see church groups and religious organisations holding marriage out at arm’s length from them and saying: “Hey you can have a civil marriage. That has got nothing to do with us.” On the contrary they would be telling us that marriage is the cornerstone of the Christian church. I believe that it is a very important part of the Christian church. It is an institution that upholds Christian values and I think it is very important in that right. I understand why people who are religious do not want the Marriage Act to be changed—I understand that entirely. 
I also understand the number of heterosexual and same-sex couples who came to the select committee and said that the institution of marriage does not uphold their beliefs because it says that same-sex couples cannot enter into it. That is not something I believe in; that is something in fact that I find very very abhorrent to my own personal views. For that reason I would like a civil union which is a secular neutral new institution which shows that my values can be upheld as well as those of my same-sex friends who are in long-term relationships and want to have them formalised. 
So although we might stand here in this Chamber and say that young people should just get married the reality is that there is a large proportion of young people out there who have grown up as I did with the Bible in Schools programme and with being told that marriage is one of the cornerstones of the Christian church. I find it very ironic now that the same kinds of people are coming to me and saying: “No it isn’t. No no—not at all. It is a civil ceremony and if you go to a church well that’s your decision.” Well that is not the case. If one is going to say that that is fine but one should be consistent and not just say it when it suits.