Civil Union Bill

Here we are in urgency, passing a piece of social engineering from this Labour Government. I want to object to three particular elements of the process in respect of this debate. The first thing is to ask why on earth we need to deal under urgency with an issue as important as the very structure of the families of our society. What is the great rush? I would like to know from George Hawkins, or any other Labour member, how they justify rushing this sort of provision through the House prior to Christmas.

The second point I wish to make is this: why will Labour members not be honest and say that this is the “Gay Marriage Bill”? In every single element of law, whether education law, health law, or superannuation law—in every single one of the 1,034 areas affected—marriage and civil union are to be absolutely identical. I say to the members opposite that if they really have the courage of their convictions, why do they not say they are legislating for gay marriage?

The third part of the process of this bill that is appalling is that its associated bill, the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, has been deferred. Why is Parliament, under urgency, being asked to pass this bill, when the Government has acknowledged that there are problems and complications with the second bill?

The further point I want to make is that Government members have repeatedly said that this bill does not undermine marriage. What this bill and its associated bill propose to do is to say that it makes absolutely no difference in terms of the law of the land whether one is in a same-sex civil union, married, or in a de facto relationship. I ask members opposite why on earth anybody would get married. If people can shack up, get the same rights, and, what is more, walk out the next day with none of the hassles of getting a divorce—if they can get straight out of the relationship—why would anyone bother getting married? Members opposite say this bill does not undermine marriage. Of course, it does.

💬 Darren Hughes: How?

I shall explain for the member for Otaki, who said that it does not undermine marriage. Without any obligations, without any requirement to do anything in the form of a marriage, people can enter into a de facto relationship and pick up, via the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, all 1,034 of the legal rights that go with being married. So why bother marrying?

💬 Darren Hughes: But this is the Civil Union Bill.

Mr Hughes is interjecting that this is the Civil Union Bill, but the Government introduced the two bills together, and I have had absolutely no indication from the Government that it will make any change in that second part of the process. Will Darren Hughes support me in saying that it is a nonsense for Parliament to debate this bill without the other bill? I heard another member say it was like being asked to buy the door of a house without knowing the structure of it, and he is right. But only the Government can take responsibility for the weird way in which we are being forced to debate this issue. I tell Mr Hughes that the only thing we can take from that is what is always set aside, and that is that civil union and marriage will be identical, and that is wrong.

I believe that there is something that undermines marriage, and that is infidelity—where a husband cheats on his wife and takes to his bed a woman who is not his wife. He is married to that woman, they have children together, they live together, and to all intents and purposes they have a perfect and happy life together, but he breaks the sacred vow they made on their wedding day by cheating on his wife, children, church, family, community, and the whole of society. Gay couples do not do that to another relationship—unless they are breaking the particular commitment that they have made to each other. The point I am making is that it is extremely hypocritical to suggest in any context that because a husband and wife have the perfect marriage from the outside, that marriage is perfect on the inside as well. It is wrong.

I think it is important for people to realise that what we are debating in this Chamber is actually whether a couple who want to make a commitment to each other for the rest of their lives are entitled to have that commitment recognised by the law. This is not about gay marriage; this is about allowing same-sex couples to have their genuine, committed relationships recognised by the law. I do not believe that there is anything wrong with saying that we welcome people entering into long-term, committed relationships. I sat at the select committee and heard people say that gay people were more promiscuous than everyone else. I was surprised that so many heterosexual people had not had sexual relations before they got married. I was very surprised that so many men had never had sexual relations with anyone other than the woman they had married. I was surprised at the numbers of those people who came before the select committee. I assume that that was what they were saying, because it was the standard they expected of everyone else.

But what is really the issue is that a couple who are together want to be able to have a ceremony that acknowledges their relationship, so that they can then spend the rest of their life together having an anniversary date on which they can celebrate the beginning of their relationship. I probably have an anniversary date other than my wedding date. It is the date I started living with my husband—living in sin, I guess some of the church people who came before the select committee would have said. I lived with my husband for 5 years, before we got married. I have been married to him for 4 years. My wedding anniversary is my anniversary date, not the date that we started living together. I see nothing wrong with allowing a date to be given to people who want to make that commitment to each other. Surely that encourages stability and genuine relationships in our society. Why does it matter that they are same-sex relationships? Those relationships will continue to exist de facto, if not de jure.

People have made the point that we are in urgency. These are the normal sitting hours of the House. The House normally sits until 10 o’clock on a Tuesday night. All that urgency is is extended sitting hours. It is a nonsense to suggest that this bill is being rushed through. The select committee sat through hundreds of submissions, and we listened to them very carefully. Some of us sat on the select committee and took our role very seriously. Even though Murray Smith from United Future has a view different from mine on this bill, I have to respect the contribution he made at the select committee. I see Edwin Perry from New Zealand First; he had exactly the same level of commitment at the select committee. We can have differences of view, and we can respect those views.

This is not about gay marriage; this is about accepting that there are couples in our society who are different. They are not heterosexual; they are homosexual. There are gay and lesbian couples in our community who deserve to have their relationships recognised in the law. That is all that civil union does. It does not threaten my marriage. It does not threaten the marriage of any members in this Chamber—unless that marriage is threatened by infidelity, by their walking away from the promises they made to their wives on the day they got married, by their breaking those promises. I have never broken that promise to my husband, and I made that promise genuinely. I would never betray the trust that he has in me and that I have in him.

Despite the previous speaker wanting us to get into true confessions, I will not take that course. [Interruption] I should have been so very lucky, perhaps.

I make the point that this is a gay marriage bill, and it is this part above anything else that makes that absolutely clear. Clause 8, “Age of eligibility”, tells us when one can get involved in a gay marriage. The previous comparative section is a section from the Marriage Act. Members should compare this bill to that Act of 1955—Act No. 92—because when we look at it, we can see a similar section with regard to marriages. As far as this bill is concerned, partners are not to be already married or in a civil union, so we are talking about marriage in the same breath as civil union.

Clause 9 is headed: “Partners not to be within prohibited degrees of civil union”, and we can compare that to another section in the Marriage Act. There is the same type of degrees of relationships as exists in the Marriage Act.

I do not know much about the gay marriage that is proposed, but when it concerns a man and a man, and when in the legislation there are prohibited degrees of man and man, I ask whether it is really necessary. I would not have thought so. It is irrelevant, but here we are pretending.

That is what this bill is about. There is a lot of pretence and make-believe. The Government wants a gay couple to be like man and wife, so it pretends that the same prohibited degrees of man and women apply to a homosexual or lesbian relationship. The reason we have these prohibited degrees for a man and a woman is to prevent the problems that arise from an incestuous relationship—people marrying first or second cousins, etc., as the case might be. That is something that goes back hundreds and thousands of years, because it was known even in those days that those close relationships could result in problems.

So we have the gay marriage situation. It is like little boys and girls playing doctors and nurses—or little boys and boys playing doctors and nurses, I suppose. The Government still wants them to play at being husband and wife, so it plays at having prohibited degrees of civil union. It is grotesque to have this type of thing in the bill. It is absolutely grotesque for one to possibly believe that this thing could exist, but that is what this Labour Party—with Helen Clark as its leader—is imposing on us.

Before I came to the House, I used to hear people talk about “Helengrad”. Now we are well and truly going to live in “Helengrad” if this type of grotesque relationship is being foisted on the House, supported principally by every Green member of Parliament.

In clause 10 we talk about: “Order dispensing with prohibition on civil union within prohibited degrees of affinity”, and we carry on with the same provisions that are in the Marriage Act. We even talk about solemnisation by civil union celebrants. We use the word “solemnisation”. In my view, that is nothing to do with anything other than a form of formal marriage between a man and a woman—one solemnises something with a celebrant. But the Government still has to go on with this grotesque pretence, and pretend that it is something wonderful and new—just like a solemnisation between a man and a woman, which it will never be and can never be. There is solemnisation by a registrar, and couples have to get licences. There is more solemnisation by a civil union celebrant, and then solemnisation by an exempt body. The Government loves these words and loves this pretence of people being in a marriage situation, but we know that it is not a marriage situation. It is just something utterly false and make-believe.

Then in clauses 17 and 18 the Government talks about the “Changing form of relationship”. I will be supporting the amendments being put forward by United Future members to delete or amend clauses 17 and 18, as the case may be, just as I think about 11 New Zealand First members who supported the amendments put forward by Richard Worth. I think that that should be put on the record, as well. That is the way we voted.

We do not want to be intolerant, and Richard Worth came up with a very reasonable suggestion. In taking a tolerant view of it, we thought we would go along with that provision even though we opposed the bill, bearing in mind that Richard Worth’s provisions also had a referendum linked to them, as well. New Zealand First is prepared to have an open mind on this issue; our members are prepared to look at other members’ views. So the views of Richard Worth and United Future members have been and will be supported by New Zealand First.

I would like to deal with a couple of issues that have been raised by earlier speakers. The first relates to the idea that somehow this is a Labour Party agenda being pushed out and ahead of the will of the people, and that there is not a broad mainstream viewpoint in favour of this bill. It is interesting, is it not? That viewpoint really has no credibility. The New Zealand Herald editorial, the Press editorial, the Timaru Herald, the Ashburton paper, the Southland Times—from Mr English’s own electorate, and from mine—and the Otago Daily Times were all unambiguous and are clearly in favour of this legislation. There is absolute unanimity on the part of all those editorials. How in the face of those considered editorials, from hardly left-wing rags or harbingers of advancement of radical issues, can the Opposition still try to assert—I say without any credibility—that this bill is some outrageous Labour Party agenda ahead of the nation?

Dr Smith and Mr English have both made reference to an issue that Stephen Franks has raised previously about how we should not be automatically conferring on de facto relationships rights that should be reserved for, or opted into through, marriage or civil union. Those members say through marriage only; I say through marriage or civil union. I actually agree with that point. I think that most of us do think that there is something special about some relationships symbolised in some way by an official recognition of a long-term relationship, and that we ought not automatically give the same rights to all de facto relationships. I agree with that. What I disagree with is that we should, for reasons of gender, exclude gay people from having a legally recognised relationship that gives them certain protections, which might be different from what is given to de facto relationships.

💬 Hon Member: Vote for Richard Worth’s amendments.

No, I disagree with Mr Worth’s amendments. I agree with the general proposition I have just put, but what I disagree with is the leap of faith and the lack of logic that takes that argument to the next step and says that because that issue is not yet resolved, we should not actually deal with the issue of civil unions. Why not?

I take this back to the first comment I made in my first call. I am married and I have children, but I do not believe that civil unions threaten the institution of marriage—not my marriage nor any other marriage. Giving rights to a minority never undermines the majority. It is that simple. It does not undermine the majority. Anyone who has a view to the contrary, I am afraid, with respect, is wrong. If members look at any other area of human rights, they will see that affording human rights to the minority never takes away anything from the majority. It just gives rights to the minority. It does not undermine the majority in any way.

In terms of the suggestion that we should have a referendum, again, the newspapers have been pretty clear and wise on that. That would be abrogating the responsibility we have as parliamentarians to hear the arguments and make a wise decision. It is no more appropriate to have a referendum on this issue than it is on the foreshore and seabed, or any other contentious issue that comes before Parliament. We are well able to hear the arguments. We take responsibility, and I will take responsibility for the vote I cast. I will be judged by my constituents, and I am confident, notwithstanding the rhetoric from National to the contrary, that at the end of this term my constituents will be satisfied that I have taken my responsibilities seriously and cast my vote wisely, and will return me in Otago. The idea that we should devolve the difficult decisions involving the rights of minorities to referenda is one that would always favour the majority over the minority and would abrogate the rights of the minority in favour of the majority.

This part is the part that actually does the damage. This is the part that creates this pantomime of marriage where the intention is clearly to invoke a State blessing for a relationship without defining the relationship or setting out what the relationship should contain. When the select committee was working through this part, we seriously looked at—in fact, we asked for some drafting on—what a civil union might be.

We fiddled around with the solemnisation, as it is called, and now have the words, which I do not think are going to become immortal words, that must represent the vow. Clause 15(2) states: “During the solemnisation, in the presence of the civil union celebrant and at least 2 witnesses, each party must make a clear statement to the other that—(a) names both parties; and (b) acknowledges that they are freely joining in a civil union with each other.” That is all it says. What it is doing is trying to hitchhike on those sonorous words that bring tears to the eyes of mothers every weekend. There is a variance of words, but they are words such as: “Forsaking all others, till death do us part, for better for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer.” Those are the words that have created the respect for marriage. Those are not in any Act. Those words have been negated by a series of Governments that decided they could make these promises unenforceable. They have been negated to the point where the institution of marriage itself is not something to be looked up to and respected as far as it extends to law.

What the select committee briefly discussed but did not get to doing, was looking at what Richard Worth eventually has said. He said that all we should be doing is saying people can opt in to being treated for legal purposes as a couple, wanting next-of-kin rights and wanting the superannuation entitlements.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Wednesday)