The Legal Affairs, Police, Corrective Services and Emergency Services Committee of the Queensland Parliament is holding public hearings today on a bill introduced by Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser to enshrine civil unions in state law.
The text of the Civil Partnerships Bill can be found here.
The Brisbane Times is providing rolling coverage of the hearing, and there’s debate on Twitter around the hashtags #civilunions and #qldpol.
So far, all the witnesses have been drawn from Christian groups, and not ones supportive of civil unions. Indeed, judging from the BT coverage, the evidence seems not to go to the issue of relationship recognition by the state, but to fears around same sex marriage.
There are two important things to note about the bill:
(a) The bill, though primarily directed to according relationship recognition to same sex couples, does not stipulate the gender of those who wish to enter a civil partnership. Thus it also accords rights to opposite sex couples who may not wish to marry, and who do wish to have formal recognition of their partnership, and the legal rights which accompany such recognition.
(b) The bill also makes consequential amendments to a range of other state legislation. For instance, spouses of judges who are civil partners have entitlements to pensions, and first home owners grants can be applied for by a couple in a civil union. The Anti-Discrimination Act is also to be amended.
It’s disappointing, in my view, that the debate has been one that hardly goes to the actual text of the bill, and focuses on hoary themes used to oppose same sex marriage. The bill seeks to grant rights in civil law, and has nothing to do with a religious conception of marriage, or indeed marriage. That’s one of the principal reasons I myself would want to give very strong support to the bill.
Although I certainly favour the extension of marriage rights to same sex couples, I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fan of the heteronormative institution of marriage. One consequence of the debate, and an important one, ought to be reflection on institutional forms of recognition of partnerships, and how very important a range of social bonds and ties are in our lives. Those go far beyond the heterosexually normative concept of the nuclear family.
Such bonds and ties deserve recognition and celebration.
So I am extremely gratified to see this legislation introduced.
I think it’s also worth pausing to note that there’s a strong likelihood that any attempt subsequent to the national ALP conference to amend the Marriage Act to facilitate same sex marriage is likely to fail. Compromise between the different Labor factions is likely to result in a conscience vote, which means, in all probability, that given the Coalition has stated its intention to vote against any amendment en bloc, legislation will not pass.
That’s paralleled by the intention of the state LNP in Queensland to vote against the bill, on the grounds that it is a “distraction”.
It is not. It is an important social reform, and long overdue. I hope Andrew Fraser is right and there will not be 6 ALP MPs voting against the bill when it returns to the floor of the Legislative Assembly. I also hope state MPs, including LNP and independent MPs, search their consciences in an informed manner. Hopefully, some of the witnesses giving evidence later today will enable them to do that, and I would welcome that too.
Well said Mark!
Mark, thanks to the link to the Bill.
It is well intentioned but it is poor in its drafting.
It does not state that a civil partnership is based on a sexual relatiionship, which I would have thought was the whole point of the legislation.
See Section 4 of the Act.
Good on the Bligh govt here (or is Fraser? – Dunno Im out of the Quinceland loop!). Hope they pull it off.
Shit, Id never consider marriage, but maybe I’d go for a civil union. Assuming that trumps defacto hetero coupling, in Christian mindsets – then the move will presumably strenghten ‘the family’ overall, what?
I would agree with the LNP that the ongoing argument about same sex unions is a distraction. A distraction that is going to continue until we all grow up and accept that the law should not distinguish between same sex and opposite sex relationships.
It is particularly disappointing that the non-grownups in both the national and state LNP are not going to allow a conscience vote on the matter.
@3 – Lefty E, it’s a private member’s bill introduced by Fraser in his capacity as Member for Mt Cootha, but the government has allocated parliamentary time to it. I gather that’s one of the supposed grounds for objection by the opposition.
You know, there should be more parliamentary time devoted to Jeff Seeney spluttering at the mouth, or something.
It has the support of the overwhelming majority of the Labor caucus. Three members have indicated opposition, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re persuaded to abstain rather than vote against.
The committee reports to Parliament on 21 November.
@GregM, my brief perusal of the Marriage Act, 1961 cannot find any mention of traditional marriage being “based on a sexual relationship” either. Assuming for the sake of argument that I haven’t missed such a mention, would that omission make the Marriage Act equally badly drafted, in your opinion?
I don’t see that it has to be based on a sexual relationship!
Exactly my point, Kim. I have read with interest the blogs of quite a few people who are asexual – that doesn’t mean that they don’t/can’t have intense romantic intimate relationships that might move one day into marriage/civil partnership territory.
Indeed, tigtog.
Meanwhile, some sensible stuff from the Queensland Law Society:
And from QAHC:
… a point echoed by Very Reverend Peter Catt from the Anglican Church of Australia’s Social Responsibilities Committee, who is also supporting the bill.
I hope, particularly if it’s passed, that this will give the Federal government the courage to revisit the Marriage Act.
I think there will be a federal bill, David, but as Mark said in the post, it’s likely to fail because a substantial number of Labor MPs will vote against under a conscience vote, and the Coalition (as with the LNP in Queensland) is saying it will vote against. Hopefully some Liberal MPs might summon up the courage to cross the floor.
In the Queensland Parliament, Labor has a healthy majority, and the influence of the Catholic Right on the Labor caucus is a lot less than in some other states.
Plus it’s pretty clear that despite the fact that this is a private member’s bill, it’s part of the Bligh government’s strategy to differentiate itself from the LNP, introduce some progressive reforms, and paint (accurately) Campbell Newman as captive to the fundies and rural hicks in his party.
@Kim
Federal Liberal/Nat MP’s crossing the floor to vote on ammending the Marriage Act while Abbot is leader? Surely impossible.
We know his homophobia and deeply conservative Catholic prejudices; he’s the Vatican’s man through and through. I can just imagine him making all kinds of dark threats to keep his MP’s on the straight and narrow as a vote approaches, if that vote ever happens. There’s no anger like self-rightous religious anger and Abbot has plenty of it, bubbling just below the surface. Then there’s the threats of excommunication from the Catholic church that might be made towards Abbot himself.
But to get back on topic, kudos to Andrew Fraser. I hope the QLD Civil Unions bill gets up.
Gillard has jumped, and it looks like national conference will allow members of federal caucus to exercise a conscience vote on this issue at some point, http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/bring-on-debate-let-there-be-noise-20111114-1nfgm.html
I agree with PM here, but I see a couple of flies in the ointment:
(a.) Great. Bring on the Leftwing complaints about the need to enforce a yes vote for gay marriage, regardless of the fact Labor allowed conscience votes on those landmark bills to decriminalise homosexuality back in the day, regardless of the fact that the previous anti-gay-marriage regime has never been used to create any Clintonian ‘DOMA’ monstrosity (which would have forced all Labor MPs to cast a vote in favour of discrimation.)
(b.) Has this policy breakthrough been achieved as part of a grand factional deal to also get the ALP platform amended to allow the sale of uranium to India? Gillard’s open letter contains mention of only two substantial ideas, and the uranium deal gets precedence over marriage law reform. Urrgh. The politics of the smoke filled backroom. No way the Greens could possibly connect the dots there and use this in some way against the ALP…