Civil Union Bill

When the debate finished last night, Stephen Franks was speaking. He has 2 minutes and 15 seconds remaining, should he wish to continue.

I do wish to continue speaking—and I wish for much more. However, we will see what happens. We are dealing with the core of the bill at the moment. The concern I raised before we rose last night was that the bill assumes the contract that is represented by civil union, and does not state what it is. The objection immediately came up in the Justice and Electoral Committee that the Marriage Act does not do so either. That should have caused a responsible Parliament to decide whether we have so emptied marriage of content that we can no longer assume it is for committed, stable relationships—or exclusive relationships—and that we ought to go back and look at both, in terms of the policy. What is it we are trying to do?

When the French Pacte Civil de Solidarité came in in 1999, their Parliament debated for 120 hours. That is more than 7 weeks of our full-time sitting time. It came up with a regime that has some real substance. For example, the contract can stipulate how household items are required to be divided, and what welfare and work benefits there are—things like taking annual holidays together. It excludes automatic descent or succession rules. The tax treatment, which equates to marriage, arises only after 3 years of successful living together in a civil union. In other words, the French Parliament took seriously the questions that have been completely ducked here in the effort to get a great symbolic victory—something to whack around the ears of all the people whom the Government likes to call homophobes.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Not the Government.

This is a Government bill, I say to Mr Duynhoven, which he is voting for, because he has probably been whipped to do so but will not admit it. The Government calls homophobes people who raise legitimate questions such as why we are debating a civil union bill without defining “civil union”. Why is the State engaged in so-called recognising a relationship, when it does not have any interest in what that relationship is? There is absolutely no reason why a civil union could not exist for one day and expressly qualify.

I will not be supporting this legislation. I have been thinking through it, because there are a lot of things that have been discussed and there has been a lot of debate on the Christian perspective, yet every major religion in the world affirms marriage except one, which I have heard about loud and strong in the debate, and that is secular humanism. I believe that has been a strong voice in this country.

In the early days of my rallying career, we did a tremendous amount of our special-stage driving at night time. To be honest, I absolutely loved it. All I could see with those powerful spotlights mounted on the front of the car was the road ahead. Everything else was in pitch darkness. Even if I had wanted to see what was on either side of the road that I was going down at breakneck speed, it was impossible because of the darkness. That is exactly what is happening with the Government-led Civil Union Bill.

The Government has decided the road it wants New Zealanders to go down, and all its effort and attention is on giving illumination to that road or pathway—only. It is trying to convince us that it is a good road, and it wants to hide everything that may be on either side of the road in darkness. Well, I have news for the Government. Another thing I learnt from my years in rallying is that darkness does not last forever. At a point in time, the sun does begin to rise. We are at a point in New Zealand history at which the sun is beginning to rise over our nation. Things that have been previously hidden from view by the night will now be seen clearly by all, because when the sun begins to rise, the darkness must go. No longer is the road alone all that we see. What is on either side becomes of tremendous importance as it affects the ability to maintain maximum forward motion on the road ahead of us.

Middle New Zealand has seen what this legislation really is, and the Government will not be able to hide the consequences of it from them. I believe that middle New Zealand has been speaking clearly on the bill. They know that it has nothing to do with loving relationships and absolutely everything to do with gay marriage. Not one email I received stated that couples were looking forward to having a civil union next year, but many stated that they were looking forward to getting married next year. Members should think of the complications. Already we have Mr, Mrs, Miss, Master, and Ms. What on earth will we call these? “Civs”? Just imagine the cost to business for the stationery. Just imagine the cost to Air New Zealand when people fill out their cards. What will they be: “Civ”, Miss, or Ms? It gets confusing. Besides, one cannot build on a lie.

Homosexuality is a choice. Nobody is born homosexual, as far as I am concerned. Yes, one may lean more towards one’s masculine or feminine side, but one is either a male or a female. As I said previously, I have never heard of anybody’s bones being found and identified as lesbian or homosexual. People are either male or female. I have never seen a birth notice announcing the birth of a baby lesbian or homosexual. As we heard previously, God made two types only—male and female. The gender people were born with is the gender they will die with, and science will always confirm that. One can shout it from the rooftops as long as one likes—there are only two types. I know many gay and lesbian men and women who chose to participate in the gay lifestyle but who have since chosen to leave it. All tell a similar story, which is normally, to be honest, a very sad story. But the bottom line, always, is that it always was a choice.

I do not believe legislation should be passed to encourage people into making wrong choices. I was fortunate enough to be brought up in a generation that was at least taught what was right and what was wrong. I did not always follow what was right, because people will always be able to exercise their free will. However, many years later, one learns and appreciates that many things one thought was OK when one was young in actual fact had consequences that were not pleasant. If this legislation passes—and I pray that it will not—there will be consequences to our nation.

I speak as a man who has never felt as though he has been through a traumatic experience. I do not think anyone abused me into becoming gay. From the very earliest time I recognised my sexuality, I realised I was gay. It may come as a shock to Paul Adams to hear that, but the reality is that there are many people in our society who have a genuine sexuality that is normally identified as lesbian or gay, and that has not been caused by a trauma or an experience on the road to Damascus. In my view the reasons are genetic, but, for whatever reason, it is a reality. There are people who identify in that way, and against all the odds we choose to try to form relationships with people of our own gender. In many ways our lives would probably be a lot easier if we chose to go along with the pressure that parents and the majority of people often put on us, but we do not choose to do that. We choose to be who we are, just like others in this Chamber and, I think, we generally get recognition by society for that.

I have a friend who is now 94 years old. As it happens, he is the father of a former member in this House. He recognised in his teens that there was something different about him. Brian Donnelly spoke very powerfully yesterday about the kind of sense he had about his brother that there was something a little different about him. My friend knew from his teens that he was different from many of his male peers, and he identified that as being something that in those days was impossible to express externally. He married—a happy marriage—had a family, and eventually his wife died. By then in his 80s, he could come out as something he always was—namely, someone who is gay. That was not as a result of an experience he went through; that was his sexuality. I know that Paul Adams represents an extreme in this Parliament. I know that there are honourable people like Stephen Franks who do not deny that sexuality outside of heterosexuality is a reality. It is just a pity that they cannot go one step further and recognise that we should be treated as equal citizens in this Parliament and in this country.

I want to make a fundamental point about the Human Rights Act. Many in this Chamber choose to denigrate that, but back in the early 1990s this Parliament, after extensive debate, agreed to substantially expand our human rights legislation. The major debate was around the issue of sexual orientation. There was also debate around—as the wording put it—the presence of organisms in the body, which was about whether people who have hepatitis or are HIV positive should be protected from discrimination. Disability and other grounds were also added to that legislation. That was a fundamental debate.

In many countries, human rights laws such as we have are embedded in a constitution. When we describe New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, we talk about our human rights law. Having said that, once that decision was made, naturally it flowed through society. We saw through the 1990s that many private providers of, for example, pension schemes and insurance schemes recognised same-sex partners as part of a reality in society. So they removed discrimination from their services. Towards the end of the 1990s the National Government tried to give the Government itself a permanent exemption from the Human Rights Act. Eventually it withdrew from that proposal, and 3 years ago, really by agreement across this Parliament, the Human Rights Act was expanded, as was always intended, to include the Government. Once it included the Government, from which legislation comes, it was always inevitable that legislation that was discriminatory against groups in our society would be addressed.

If we look at New Zealand legislation, we see that people with disabilities and people who are lesbian or gay are the two major groups who are discriminated against in our law. That is exactly what this legislation is about. It would have been possible at that point to say we had to expand marriage. Very sensibly, I think, the decision was made to leave marriage untouched and instead set up a separate institution called civil union, which certainly should be open to same-sex couples and have the same basic elements as marriage. That is a fundamental delivery of equality to New Zealanders. At the same time, given that we do not want to set up discriminatory institutions, it makes some sense to open that to heterosexual de facto couples, added on to the fact that we know that there are now many New Zealanders living in heterosexual relationships. One-quarter of all heterosexual couples and one-third of young heterosexual couples are living together in relationships. That is what this legislation is all about.

It is interesting, is it not, that in response to Mr Adams’ everyday, common-sense comments, the reply from the Government side of the debate was that his is an extreme viewpoint. That really illustrates to this Committee and to the wider world exactly where we are with regard to this debate. I rise with pleasure to speak in opposition to the bill that is before the Committee. I support the contention that New Zealand First continues to advance that these issues should not be decided by us. The last speaker amplified very clearly why we should not decide them. He demonstrated the complete range of belief of an extreme type that has developed—which is not surprising, though—on the other side of the Chamber in a compliance, social, and moral issue - riddled Government. Government members have come to the Chamber and, as the previous speaker did, proposed that what I believe the majority of people believe to be an ordinary, everyday assumption is extreme. That label has been placed upon Mr Adams and others who support what thousands of us have said is our belief with regard to the institution of marriage.

I rise for another reason. This bill amply demonstrates to the wider country something of the nature of the present Government. At the first reading we had a comprehensive bill in the House that presented to the country a whole range of not just marriage and partnership implications but financial ones, as well. Now we have before us a small part of that, with the draconian, unknown implications of what it means deliberately left for another day. I say to the Minister in the chair, David Benson-Pope, that that is just not good enough. We have a right to see the total implications for the constitutional and legal framework of this surprising change that is before the Committee. We do not have that, because the Government has deliberately left it off the agenda. That illustrates to me something in terms of the continued tampering with the constitutional nature of this country.

I raise another issue. Here we have a most extraordinary position. We have had much comment made about marriage, and some comment made about de facto relationships and same-sex relationships. But now, into the continuum of at least three different types of relationships or partnerships, we have a fourth one: a Labour Government - instituted civil union. It is a fourth one, and again I say we are without any knowledge at the present time of the full financial implications of what it means. I say to the Minister that that is not atypical of what one sees from this Government with regard to social and moral issues. There has been a huge tendency to interfere in everyday life. We will see that on Friday, when those who would normally go about their private business will be constrained with regard to where they can smoke. I have no doubt that next we will see outdoor bars in the street being constrained by that social determination on the part of the Labour Government.

This bill is another step on that continued path—that is what it is. It really is social engineering engendered by a minority opinion, for all the reasons that the last speaker spoke of. We are coming to the point now whereby a normal, everyday, common-sense attitude is regarded as extreme. That is the level of debate that I have seen all through the years with regard to the social and moral issues that are before us. The result of all this will be in the classroom. There will be an absolute desire that these issues be perpetuated day by day in teaching in the future. As a teacher I deplore what is happening right here. We have before us a systematic and—if it is passed—successful attempt to reconfigure much of the thinking that will take place in the institutions of this country. On behalf of the New Zealand First supporters who have spoken to me, I regard that with abhorrence. I regard the whole matter of civil union as one that, at best, those who support it may have some gratitude for, but that for me is a very, very major attempt to upset our fabric.

I will take a brief call to respond to the comments made by the preceding speaker. The first thing I say to Mr Peters is that this is not compulsory. One of the things that makes me most proud to be a part of this Government is that it is prepared to take hard decisions. This is a hard decision, but it is an appropriate one.

💬 Jim Peters: Where’s the other bill?

I say to Mr Peters that I will come to that. For me, this legislation is the absolutely inevitable consequence of the human rights and Bill of Rights legislation passed by our predecessors in Government in the 1990s. We cannot have those decisions on our statute book and continue to allow the discrimination that currently exists in this and related areas. In terms of the companion Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, it would have been ideal to debate it in tandem with this bill. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge the ongoing work that the Justice and Electoral Committee is doing on it. It would have been impossible, given the workload of the House and the House roster at this time, to do that before Christmas. I think it is entirely appropriate that the select committee has taken the decision—which has, of course, been its decision—to make sure that that ongoing work continues—

💬 Jim Peters: Ha, ha!

I say to Mr Peters that the committee members are masters of their own destiny. They are making sure that that work continues, in order to ensure that there are no unforeseen consequences of that legislation.

The Minister has just put his finger on the nub of the problem. The reason we do not have the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill here is precisely that the Justice and Electoral Committee discovered the legislation had unintended consequences. One of the big problems with this issue is that the Government is taking a bureaucratic view of human rights. The logic of what the Minister has just said is that we all have a human right to have the same sort of relationship, which the Government somehow has to guarantee in law.

💬 Hon David Benson-Pope: No, that you’re not discriminated against.

No. The only way to show that people are not discriminated against is for us all to have the same sort of relationship. How can any difference in rights and obligations possibly be justified, according to the Minister’s logic? That point is demonstrated in clause 18 of the Civil Union Bill. I notice the subtle change made by the Justice and Electoral Committee. Clause 18 used to be called “Converting civil union into marriage”. At least that was honest. Now it is called “Changing form of relationship”. Labour has decided that civil union cannot be said to be marriage. Lianne Dalziel got up yesterday and said that civil union is not gay marriage. The Government therefore could not have anything in the bill that looked as though it was gay marriage, so it has changed the title of clause 18 from “Converting civil union into marriage” to “Changing form of relationship”.

We know the policy intention, because that is expressed in the commentary on this bill. I refer the Committee to the heading “Prohibited degrees of civil union”. The paragraph under that heading states: “While the policy rationale is to reinforce the status of civil union as legally equivalent to marriage, many of the prohibited degrees of marriage were introduced for historical reasons …”. I do not want to discuss the prohibited degrees in any detail, but that does make it quite clear that the Government’s policy rationale is to reinforce the status of civil union as being legally equivalent to marriage. I want the Minister to tell this Committee what degree of legal equivalence there will be between civil union and marriage when this bill is passed, if it is passed at the end of this week. That matters because people will be able to interchange the two sorts of relationships. They will have different statutory definitions, so if anyone is to vote for or against this bill he or she needs to know the consequences of those definitions. That is why this bill is a nonsense without the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill—we simply do not know what will be in it.

The issue is tricky enough even within marriage. In the church in which I was married, the registration aspect is simply a requirement by the Government that has no relevance to the validity of the marriage of which I am part. In fact, the Catholic Church, in which I was married, says that we marry each other; we do not even need to have a celebrant. The substance of the marriage is in the personal commitment made in front of the community, with the sacramental overlay—which is more than an overlay; it is at the heart of it. That is a completely different version, even within marriage, of how and why it happens and why it is valid. We then go off and sign the Government’s licence, because that is what the State requires us to do. If we have that kind of complexity within the social meaning of marriage, then what are the implications of civil unions being converted into marriages, and vice versa?

People have a right to know what this legislation means. If the Minister cannot tell us, who will decide that? Parliament could, with subsequent legislation. As I have said before in this debate, I do not think Parliament will ever see that legislation, because the select committee will not be able to resolve issues like the definition of de facto. For welfare purposes de facto means a couple that has been together for a couple of weeks, and for property purposes it is a couple that has been together for 3 years. How can we possibly discriminate in that way?

There is a lot of huffing and puffing from members on the Opposition side of the Chamber, particularly from the previous speaker who was formerly a Minister and could have done a lot of things then that he talks about now. If he was really concerned about the situation, perhaps he should have overturned the human rights legislation. I will talk about Part 2 of the Civil Union Bill, which is about processes, formalities, and the vows people take. We are not talking about marriage in this Committee, as has been made very, very clear. We are talking about a legal contract with the State. We are not talking about the marriage vows that many people make within their churches. Nor are we talking about marriage as a sacrament, which I know that many churches, particularly the Catholic Church, uphold and believe in—and have done so for centuries. We are talking about a legal contract that is enforceable by the law of this land. I have no objection to people going through these formalities and forming a legal contract in which they make a commitment to each other.

Part 2 includes provisions concerning the formalities of that contract, a couple’s mutual obligations to each other, and the legal agreements that they make to support each other, uphold each other, and go into financial deals together. I see no problem with that. I see no reason for the people who are opposing this bill to oppose it, except to gain political capital and mileage. It has nothing to do with what is taught to children in schools. Nor will it destroy the fabric of the family. I think that that is absolutely ridiculous, and that the people who say that must have very weak marriages and very weak families. I think it is just a matter of homophobia and their own insecurity. I am absolutely appalled at some of the speeches I have heard here.

💬 Hon Bill English: That is just absolutely outrageous.

It is not outrageous, and I am entitled to my view. If that former Minister does not agree with my right to speak in this Chamber, perhaps he should have changed the law when he was a Minister.

I call for tolerance and reasonableness on behalf of the people in this Parliament and the people of New Zealand. I think this is very good legislation about basic human rights. I do not think that many people will take this contract up anyhow, but it is a human right that people are entitled to go into this form of legal agreement. I have no objection to it, and I wish the bill a safe passage through this Parliament.

What a dreadful speech! It was a short, appalling, and shocking speech. The member got up and started attacking members opposing this bill for having weak marriages. I have had only one marriage. I really do not know how many marriages that member may have had, but I have only had one. For the Labour Party to start bringing other members’ marriages into this bill shows the depths to which it has sunk.

The Labour Party talks about tolerance. Well, what comes into law this week? Old soldiers will be tossed out of RSA bars this week because the Labour Government’s legislation states they are not entitled to have a fag with their beer. Who is being intolerant there? Dianne Yates supported that legislation, and put it through the House in her name, did she not? That was the most intolerant legislation that I have seen in this House, which was put through by Dianne Yates, I think, yet she has the cheek to talk about tolerance and intolerance.

💬 Stephen Franks: She knows best!

Dianne Yates knows best. She supports prostitution—she knows best. She tosses the diggers out of the RSA—she knows best. She supports unnatural ways of life—she knows best. What an intolerant speech that was, and now she cannot take it—

💬 Dianne Yates: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I thought the member said that I had supported the Prostitution Reform Bill. In actual fact, I did not. That is a point of fact, rather than a point of order.

I apologise for that remark.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): It was not actually a point of order.

Her party supported the prostitution legislation, but I wholeheartedly apologise to Dianne Yates.

💬 Dianne Yates: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The Prostitution Reform Bill had a conscience vote. Once again, I think the member should get his facts straight.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Both of those points of order were not points of order. They are still debating points. [Interruption] I remind members that when I am on my feet there will be silence. There will be no comment on rulings on points of order. They were both debating points. Members say things quite often that are not strictly accurate, but they are still points that members can raise in debate and then debate them.

💬 Jim Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. In the course of your well-considered explanation to the Chamber, I heard a comment from the other side—“For goodness’ sake!”. I believe it was a reflection upon your statement and ought to be withdrawn immediately.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member is right. I did give a general warning, but I will give it again. I ask the member who made a remark while I was on my feet speaking to withdraw that remark, because that is the correct thing to do.

💬 Dianne Yates: Madam Chairperson, I withdraw.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I remind members that when there is a point of order they should stop immediately and allow the Chair to deal with the point of order and call the member first. That often does not happen, so I remind members of those courtesies.

As I was saying, the intolerant member for one of the Hamilton seats, Dianne Yates, who was responsible for tossing the diggers out of the RSAs, has the cheek to get up and speak about tolerance. Of course, what has been highlighted by Mr Barnett and Mrs Yates today is the fact that every piece of legislation will—

💬 Dianne Yates: I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I point out to the member that my name in this place is not Mrs Yates.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is correct. A member should be referred to by his or her correct name.

Sorry, I had not realised—Dianne Yates. I do not mind being interrupted again. Both Dianne Yates and Tim Barnett have established today that every bill the Labour Government passes will lead to some subsequent legislation. The Government says that when this bill is passed, that is it; but, of course, we know now that that is not it. When the human rights legislation was passed, it was intended to have subsequent consequences. Clearly, the consequence of this legislation will be adoption legislation that gives homosexuals and lesbians the absolute right to adopt children so that the courts will not be able to disregard their status. There is always a consequence of what the Labour Government does, and that is the way we are heading with this legislation as clearly indicated to me by Dianne Yates and Tim Barnett.

Mr Jim Peters made the very good point that schools will now, of course, have to teach what is meant by “civil union”. Schoolchildren will have courses on it. That will be their human right, will it not? It will become part of the education syllabus. The Labour Party will say that Parliament passed the legislation and therefore, as a consequence, we must have courses in schools on civil union. I am sure Mr Tim Barnett agrees that it will be a natural consequence, just as any school’s social issues classes talk about marriage and various other issues that are fully discussed in schools today. I am sure that schools today discuss homosexual and lesbian behaviour as part of the syllabus, and that they will follow on from that by discussing the rights of homosexuals and lesbians, as granted by this legislation of the Labour Government, to any form of natural marriage—marriage in the natural sense between a man and a woman.

This legislation cannot remove that law of nature. Marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Trying to have a marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, is just grotesque nonsense.

That is the sort of thing we get from a party that supports prostitution legislation. That is what we expect from the Labour Party, and that is what we get. It is the sort of thing we get from a party that tosses diggers out of the RSA—an intolerant party. It is the type of thing we get from a party that talks about human rights but really only wants to push the views of people who have supported its views from time to time.

This bill, of course, is also meant to be a smokescreen to cover the mess the Labour Government is going to experience after the Supreme Court ruling in the Zaoui case. The Government is doing its very best to try to divert attention from what will happen in that case, but New Zealand First believes that the civil union matter should go to a referendum of all New Zealanders, and that New Zealanders should tell this Parliament what they want.

In rising to speak in support of the Civil Union Bill, I would just like to make a comment about the previous speaker’s views on how intolerant the Labour Party or anyone who supports the bill is. I put it to this Chamber that his diatribe of attacks on anything less than what he perceives to be the norm, his intolerance of anything that is not part of the Dail Jones view of how the world should be, is absolute intolerance.

💬 Dail Jones: Let’s have a referendum.

I do not believe that a referendum is appropriate. This is a conscience issue, and we have cast our votes accordingly.

I would like to pay respect to people. For me, my vote was not a difficult decision—I actually feel really strongly that this legislation is about justice and equality—but for many members the issue has been difficult. I would like to pay respect to Ashraf Choudhary, who I know spent not just many hours but days and weeks thinking about this issue. In the end, he decided to support the bill, because it is about justice and equality. That is something that I feel is an integral part of our society. This legislation is simply about the ability of couples in loving relationships to formalise those relationships, whether they be gay or heterosexual. It is also about their extended families and about their children.

We are a great nation with great communities. Generally speaking, we are a tolerant and inclusive society. But, as the previous speaker has shown, opponents of this legislation are not looking at it from an inclusive point of view; they are saying that people who do not fit the norm—who are not like them—are somehow less than whole. I have heard previous speakers say that the best family situation for kids is to have a mum and dad, and that any family that does not fit that mould is therefore just not up to scratch. My perspective is that I was for some time a single parent. I had been married, and I believe that it was in the best interests of me, my ex-husband, and my children that we did not remain married. Also, my children are of Indian and Pākehā descent. Life was a lot different a couple of decades ago—they are now 26 and 23—and from time to time, as they grew up, racist comments were made to them. They would come home genuinely upset about things that had been said to them. To a parent, there is nothing more hurtful than having one’s children hurt by something that one knows is unfair and repugnant.

Opponents of this bill who say that people in same-sex relationships should not have their relationships formalised, and that their children are in some way disadvantaged or less whole than children whose parents are married, are actually doing exactly the same thing to those children—they are passing a judgment that those children are somehow not as good, or that their family backgrounds are not as good.

Obviously, my children have grown up. I am not a grandparent yet, as many members are, but I do have many friends with young children. Many of those friends are heterosexual, and some of them are gay parents. My two particular sets of friends who are gay parents are wonderful parents. They are absolutely fantastic parents. They have great kids who are high-achieving and wonderful children to know, and who are very dear to me. So it really grieves me to hear members criticise such families.

I would like to make some comments this morning with regard to some of the speeches that were made last night when members were dealing with Part 1.

There was a speech from Mark Peck in which he preached his doctrine and religion of tolerance, and it all sounded really wonderful. He said that no one should ever judge anybody else and that we should all be tolerant of everybody, but he made it very clear, even during his own speech, that he was less than tolerant of those of us on the other side of the Chamber, or wherever we may be, who have any view apart from his own. That is the fallacy of that particular doctrine that is preached; it is all about: “We are tolerant of everything, as long as you agree with us.”

We do not live in that kind of world. This is not a world where there are no rights and no wrongs, although many people try to proclaim that there is no absolute right and no absolute wrong, and that everybody should accept everything. The people who preach that decide very quickly that something is wrong if someone steals their car, breaks into their home, or affects their person in some way. Then, suddenly, they have standards that they consider are right, and there are actions that they consider are wrong. So although that doctrine sounds wonderful, it is a lot of poppycock and codswallop to say that we should all be tolerant of everybody and should not have any standards. New Zealand society has a right to be able to determine that some things are right and some things are wrong. That is why some of us believe that this issue should go to a referendum—so that New Zealanders can say whether they believe that it is now right for people of the same sex to be able to have marriage in the same way as heterosexual couples have it.

Another speech last night was from the Hon David Cunliffe, who gave great respect to the Church and its opinions in society, but then said that the Church should keep its opinions out of government and that it had no place here. But he seemed to miss the point that, instead, this Government was stepping into that role and making declarations in this nation. I have to ask what right the Government has to do that. What right has the Government to tell the Church that it should keep its opinions to itself, then to step in and begin to make declarations—as it is doing through this legislation—about what is right and wrong in our society, without reference to the opinions of those in the land who do have strong beliefs?

The real high point of the speeches yesterday, though, was that from Tim Barnett. He got up and said that he was in a dilemma in that he, obviously, could marry, but if he married a woman, it would not work out very well. He has a same-sex partner, but he is unable to marry that person. He said very clearly that he has been living in sin for a number of months because he has been unable to marry his partner. That is an amazing statement. I appreciate the man’s honesty, but why does he feel that he is living in sin? Why does he feel that he now needs the Government to pass a law, this civil union legislation, so that he can marry and not have that feeling of living in sin any more, when in actual fact the whole basis of this argument is supposed to be that there is not any such thing as sin, that one can do whatever one likes, and that everybody should be tolerant of one’s behaviour?

That is really the crux of this legislation. It is about giving those living in relationships that they feel are wrong the endorsement of society. They want the acceptance of society, and, through this legislation, they are trying to demand that anyone in New Zealand who has any other opinion must conform and give acceptance to their relationships. Well, I say to Mr Barnett that I am sorry but it is not possible to legislate for that. This Government, even if it passes this law, cannot force me to give him acceptance of his relationship. I can honour him as a human being and give him human rights, but I cannot be forced by this Government to endorse his particular lifestyle and his choice of relationship. It is absurd that while one speaker on that side of this argument is saying that the Government should keep the Church out of its decision, this bill is turning the Government into the Church of the land in that it is beginning to provide absolution for all of those in New Zealand who are living in relationships that they do not feel are accepted by society. In Mr Tim Barnett’s own words, he feels he is living in sin, and he wants the Government to give him absolution so that he will not feel that way any longer. He will be able to have a ceremony and receive a piece of paper from the Government, and then he can feel OK about the way he lives.

We are not seeming to hear any more in this debate about all the arguments about next-of-kin agreements, and it is rather strange that all of that has stopped. When the bill was first introduced, people said it was all about the fact that many people were being denied their right to visit their partner in hospital.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson, for the opportunity to take a brief call. I want to cover just two issues, really.

The first issue is what I think lies at the heart of this bill, the companion legislation, and the homosexual law reform legislation of the mid-1980s. What that is, quite simply, is allowing people to be who they are, to be comfortable with who they are, and to live a normal life as who they are. In my life I have known too many people—and I know one or two still—who are gay but for some peculiar reason seem unable to express that publicly, are unable to live their lives honestly within a public arena, and are intensely miserable and unhappy people. It is quite obvious from simply watching them that they are intensely miserable and unhappy people. I am not sure why we should think that is a good thing, or why we should decide to make people, in effect, through the way we act—through law and through norms—live a life such that they cannot be themselves and cannot be who and what they actually are.

That is particularly the case when what they are and who they are does not actually affect the rest of us. The fact that somebody is gay, that somebody has a relationship with a person of the same sex, does not affect me at all. It does not affect my relationship with my wife, and it does not affect the nature, in my view, of the society around me. I just want to engage in that peculiar argument, which I think we have heard hinted at once or twice, that gay people should somehow force themselves to be heterosexual, live in extraordinarily unhappy relationships, and rear children within those extraordinarily unhappy relationships. I cannot understand why anybody would think it is a good idea to try to force people to live in unhappy relationships and to raise children within them.

I turn to the issue of marriage. I have heard quite a bit of the debate, and there is still enormous confusion—as I think is quite common in New Zealand—between secular law and ecclesiastical law. Nothing in this bill affects the position of a Church, any Churches, in relation to their view of what is ecclesiastical law and the nature of marriage within the Church itself. It is worth reminding ourselves that, in terms of our English law tradition, there was no secular law of marriage until 1754. Marriage was a purely ecclesiastical affair up to that point, and it was regulated in part, one suspects, to try to force people to marry within the Church of England, because after 1754 one could marry outside the Church of England only if one was a Quaker. Nobody else could get married unless he or she got married within the Church of England, and that state remained until 1836, when Protestant dissenters achieved the passage of the Civil Marriages Act, and it became possible to marry outside the Church of England. That probably really created modern secular marriage as an institution.

What the Civil Union Bill does not do is extend secular marriage to gay people; it provides for civil union, for recognition of relationships. People argue that that is perhaps playing with words. In my view, that is not the essential point. The essential point is the State chooses to recognise or regulate relationships for the purposes of the interest of the State as a whole, and that may be quite different. It is as if we were trying to impose upon the Catholic Church the abolition of clerical celibacy. I find clerical celibacy a very strange idea. I find it an even stranger idea that celibate men who wear long dresses tell us about sexuality. I find that a very odd idea indeed, but that is the nature of that Church. It is a tradition that it has held—not for 2,000 years, because clerical celibacy arose much later in the history of the Roman Catholic Church than that—for at least something over 1,000 years. Since then that has been the norm of practice within the Church, and I deeply respect it. The Church stands by that position, and its priests are married to the Church, if one likes.

That is not something the State should interfere with at all, in my view, but, in the same way, the Church should not interfere with the State’s definition of what relationships are and which relationships should be recognised. To me, the fact that my friend Tim Barnett is able to have recognition, through the State’s mechanism, of the nature of himself and his relationship does not affect the Church’s position at all. The Church may continue to preach that hellfire and damnation will follow from that, but that is its choice. I do not believe in hellfire and damnation at all, because I do not believe in the afterlife or, indeed, all that goes with that, so I do not think that anyone is at risk of that.

In speaking to Part 2, I note clause 12, “Issue of licence and forms where solemnisation by civil union celebrant or exempt body”, and I recall that about a fortnight ago two women were married, joined, or united in a ceremony in my electorate. So I have to ask why we need this bill, as that couple has already done that.

There is nothing like a conscience vote to set the debate, exercise the mind, and make one stop and consider the rationale for whatever position one decides to take. On the lowering of the drinking age and on the Prostitution Reform Bill, I had no difficulty at all in having a pretty clear rationale for opposing those two bills or proposals, but it is not quite so easy in respect of the Civil Union Bill. For me, it is about setting parameters and about a way of living that has proven to be the optimum, not just for children but also for families and, thus, society as a whole.

We all need boundaries and rules. We can set some of those boundaries for ourselves, but some of them are also set through the parameters we set in this Chamber. That is, of course, what we are doing here today. The discussion on this bill is based on members of a small sector of society wanting something that they consider is important to them. Many sectors of society have aspects that they consider are important to them, and they lobby for those issues, but that does not necessarily mean they will be successful. After all, we are meant to be in Parliament to govern for the good of New Zealand as a whole, and to make decisions for the greater good and in the best interests of all New Zealanders.

In this case, members of the homosexual and lesbian community want a law for themselves. They want to be able to have a ceremony where they can have a licence and form issued by a civil union celebrant or some such. However, in arguing for the case, someone who happened to be homosexual said to me: “Let’s be honest about it.” Well, if we are going to be honest about it, why are we not calling it the “Homosexual and Lesbian Civil Union Bill”?

However, there is not necessarily a lot of honesty around. This Government does not support a referendum on the matter, because it knows that it would lose it. So I think there is not much honesty in that regard. I think a referendum is absolutely necessary. After all, I believe that the majority of New Zealanders want a benchmark for their children, something that they can aim for. It is about saying that there is an optimum—the best for themselves, for families, and for society as a whole.

I have not been able to see any reason why legislation is necessary to give same-sex couples a feeling of self-worth so that they can feel happy and feel good, not bad—as just reported by Dr Cullen—when those people can already create any sort of contract to suit themselves, and be “joined”, for want of a better word, in a ceremony, even a ceremony conducted in a church. It is my understanding that any other concerns can be addressed through various legal mechanisms.

If one supports this bill on the basis of human rights and loving relationships, then why would one not support polygamy? After all, is that not a human right? Is that not a set of loving relationships—a man with multiple wives, or a wife with multiple husbands? At what point does one set a parameter by which society has a level of standards that we can all aspire to? I think that is what we are seeing in Parliament. People are saying that they want a set of parameters.

I was listening to Larry Baldock speak earlier, and I was very impressed by some of the comments he made, and he acknowledged the respect he has for individuals. But he also said that the issue was about setting standards for society, and I fully believe that. We need to have a benchmark. We need to have a set of parameters by which society will function as a whole and in the best interests of the whole of society. That is what Parliament’s job is supposed to be—to make law in the interests of society as a whole; not necessarily to make law that addresses just some of the needs of a small section of society. We have not even gone into the whole AIDS issue, but somebody may have. That is about the whole point of setting parameters, and about governing in the interests of New Zealanders as a whole. Is the Government doing that here? I do not believe that it is.

I want to see my children have a set of benchmarks and standards that they can aim for. It may not necessarily mean that they will get there.

I am not sure whether the member who has just resumed her seat realises that homosexuality was actually decriminalised nearly 20 years ago. We had this thin end of the wedge argument at the Justice and Electoral Committee, and there is a big difference between practices that currently are illegal under New Zealand law and practices that currently are not. The reality is that homosexual couples live in legal consensual relationships. People who have a relationship with their horse, or relationships with children, are not in legal consensual relationships—by legal, I mean they are not breaking the law. But their relationships are not able to be legally recognised as having some standing. If that member had sat on the select committee and heard some of the stories that couples were telling about what had happened to them because their relationship had no standing, she might have thought a bit differently.

This idea that Government should set the moral standards for families and children is interesting, because I think that that was the job of my parents. My parents did a very good job of instilling in me the values, the parameters, and the boundaries—

💬 Phil Heatley: That was a bad job!

I thank Phil Heatley for that comment. I will report that to my mother; she will be very pleased to hear that you thought she did a bad job.

💬 Stephen Franks: Do not report my congratulations; she did a terrible job!

I will tell her that, too. It is always nice to hear from Mr Franks. But it was my parents’ role to set those moral standards; it was not the State’s role. When I was growing up my parents were quite adamant. They told me that homosexuality was not abnormal, even though it was illegal under the law. We had many gay friends around when I was growing up, and I have to say that at no point was I ever confused by their presence, even though I was young. At no point did I ever think: “Oh, goodness me, look, there’s someone who’s attracted to someone of the same sex. Maybe I am gay.” No, that is absolutely ridiculous.

I think it is stupid to stand here today and say that the State should be implementing morality for families, when we know pure well that, for example, many United Future families come from a religious background. They pass that on to their children. They are good parents, and I have absolutely no problem with that, even though I may not agree with some of the viewpoints that they pass on. I would not stand in this Chamber and say that we should pass a law saying that maybe we should take churches out of human rights legislation and say that they are no longer allowed to discriminate against women, and, for example, not allow women to hold office within a church. This is the role of communities, the role of parents, and the role of families.

I have heard some people say that now we will have to teach people that civil unions are good, and that marriage is not the only thing available. I do not think I ever recall being taught anything at a State school about marriage, apart from being told in Bible studies that marriage was the cornerstone of the Christian church. That is fine. But otherwise I do not recall that. There were kids in my class who came from single-parent families and from de facto families. Not all the kids who I went to school with came from homes with two married parents. I do not ever remember anyone saying that those kids’ families were bad, or good, and I do not think that, beyond this, we will be saying to people that marriage is not right, and that civil unions are right. Quite frankly I think it is just scaremongering. It is trying to make people feel, all of a sudden, that we will be going out there and, as Mr Connell puts it, recruiting homosexuals. I would like to—

💬 Brian Connell: I did not say that.

Mr Connell laughs now. He says that he did not say that the Civil Union Bill is a recruitment drive for homosexuals.

💬 Brian Connell: I said that?

That is right.

💬 Brian Connell: I did not say you were.

That is interesting.

💬 Brian Connell: I said you guys were.

Oh, we were recruiting homosexuals? Well, yes, that is quite right!

💬 Stephen Franks: It’s a free qualification isn’t it?

To be in the Labour Party?

💬 Stephen Franks: I don’t think you’ll get promoted any higher.

Ha, ha! Well, coming back to the bill, one of the things I wanted to touch on was the changing form of relationship in the bill, and people saying they did not understand why it is here. There was a lot of discussion at the select committee as to whether we should have it. The officials raised with us the instance of a couple who are in a civil union and are moving overseas. They want continuity of their relationship, and we should not be telling them that they have to separate and live apart for 2 years in order to be able to then marry and go overseas, and have their relationship continue to be recognised overseas. There was a lot of discussion at the select committee about whether this should actually be part of the bill, whether it was needed, or whether it would just raise the ire of people.

We felt that telling people who might have a legitimate reason for needing to transfer from a civil union to a marriage—because they are going to a country that does not recognise civil unions—to break up their family and live apart for 2 years, just so they can get married at a later stage, was slightly ridiculous and redundant. In reality, people who have a civil union will stay in a civil union. People who get married will stay married. As we have now, the majority of people marry, and the majority of people will continue to marry, and I doubt that this bill will make a lot of difference to that.

Yesterday I spoke about this bill in the context of marriage, and today I shall speak on Part 2 and the fact that same-sex people also may enter into civil unions under this legislation. I made submissions to the Statutes Revision Committee that considered the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in 1986. I favoured the decriminalisation of homosexual acts. I considered it to be completely wrong that people who engage in homosexual activities should be imprisoned, when people who committed adultery, for example, were not imprisoned. I thought that that was fundamentally unfair. However, I asked the select committee whether it could include in the bill a clause to the effect that the passage of the legislation did not, in and of itself, signal that homosexual activity was moral. I was told in no uncertain terms that such a clause could not be put in a bill before Parliament, and that it was only about law. However, that is exactly what we did last year, with the prostitution legislation. A clause was put in to state that, although the status of prostitution was being changed in this country, the State was not thereby saying that it, in and of itself, constitutes moral activity.

I think that that is at the absolute heart of the issue that is causing so much confusion in this Parliament, and we have just had another example from the previous speaker, Moana Mackey. Just because something is not criminal does not mean that it is thereby moral. They are two quite different things. I can think of a number of examples, and I have already given the example of adultery. Another example I could mention is lying. We all know that people lie every day. That does not make it moral. We know that people commit adultery. That does not make it moral. I give those two examples because they are immoral activities that are quite legal in this country.

What we did hope would arise from the Homosexual Law Reform Act was that New Zealand would become a tolerant society towards the homosexual community. My position is that we should extend our tolerance to them. That tolerance includes the right that they already have at this time, to get married. There is no law of the land that prevents that, and indeed, a number of members in the Chamber may have already been to ceremonies where gay and lesbian couples have entered into a marriage, sometimes celebrated by a person who is a member of the clergy. All that is already happening.

Therefore, the principal concern I have with this bill, and the reason why I strongly oppose it, is that it is completely unnecessary for the State to take the next step in the process, and that is to try to declare that that activity is, of itself, moral. The State must be making that statement when it decides, by legislation, to give State sanction and State blessing to unions between two people of the same sex.

I do not agree at all with Dr Michael Cullen that the State has the power to do that. In my opinion, morals do not come from the State. Morals supersede the State; they supersede culture. Moral realities exist, independent of the State, and the State should always take into account moral principles when passing laws. Some say, of course, that we cannot legislate for morality. That is interesting. We have laws in this country against stealing, murder, rape, and incest. They are all moral issues, and we have laws against them. It is true that every time we pass law in this House we are also addressing moral issues.

As Moana Mackey has said, many families in this country bring up their children with firm moral principles, and I want to see my children and grandchildren brought up in that way. The difficulty I have with this bill is that we are removing the signposts. We are saying that morals have now changed, and that children can be taught something at school that is different from what they are being taught at home. In fact, that is what will happen. We are not looking just at individual marriages. I found the whole discussion on that issue right off the point. We are looking at what is central to our culture, and how we are changing this culture for the generations to come.

Part 2, which we are discussing this morning, lies at the heart of the Civil Union Bill. Paul Adams talked about the sun rising over our nation with this legislation. However, I am afraid that our interpretations of what that particular rising sun might mean are very different, indeed.

What I find phenomenal in this debate is that in the 21st century, in a country that prides itself on its tolerance and respect for human rights, this House has members like Mr Adams who hold the most strange 19th century attitudes towards members of the rainbow community. These members of Parliament seem to have no conception of the spectrum of sexuality that all of us are part of, like it or not, gay or straight, or anywhere in between. Such a black and white approach to both sexuality and life leads to the kind of black and white theologies and philosophies that are the most dangerous to anyone who deviates from the straight white male norm. We have only to look at history, and indeed that history goes way back before the 19th century—it is a history of humankind—and around the world even today to see some of the terrible things that happened in the name of those black and white theologies that condemn people like prostitutes and homosexuals. I am thinking of the burning of a gay young man in America and of the decapitation of prostitutes in Basra. That is still with us and that is what we are fighting against in this Parliament today.

Thank goodness I am part of a Parliament and of a country that is heading in another direction and under another kind of sun. Like my fellow Green MPs, I am honoured to be among the majority in this House who will be voting for this significant step forward in the long, long struggle for true respect and liberation for all people in this country, regardless of our gender or our sexuality. In fact, speaking personally, I would rather be voting on gay marriage here today. At least with the Civil Union Bill and its companion relationships bill, same-sex couples will, at last, have the chance to achieve the same sense of commitment in a loving relationship that straight people have been entitled to always.

Just speaking briefly about the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, I would like to stress how critical it is that that bill is passed as soon as is practicable, otherwise the bill today will simply be a hollow gesture. I listened with interest to the comments made by Bill English on some of the problems associated with the interface between the relationships bill and the social security legislation—an area with which I have some familiarity. I hope that some of us will be involved in the Government’s ongoing attempts to sort out the vexed question of relationships “in the nature of marriage” that this bill has brought up. That discussion is long overdue and I hope that the Government will work with us on that question.

Like all other MPs supporting this bill, in the last few weeks and months I have been subject to a torrent of communication from the bill’s opponents. While I respect the right of all people to their honest beliefs and their right to express them, I have to say that, on the whole, I simply do not understand their arguments, even with the best will in the world. One of their main arguments seems to be that civil union for same-sex couples will somehow undermine heterosexual marriage. I simply do not comprehend that. How will two gay men or two lesbian women entering a committed relationship in the eyes of the State threaten my, or anyone else’s, marriage? How will any loving and committed relationship, gay or straight, be undermined by anyone else’s loving and committed relationship? As many members have pointed out, marriage is threatened all the time by all sorts of things, but civil union is not one of them. In fact, I find it ironic and incomprehensible that so many married MPs seem to think that it will be a moral wrong for other citizens to have the right to take the same vows, or similar vows, as they have.

Underpinning a lot of this debate are theological beliefs. As happened with the very liberal Biblical interpretation by some of the people in the prostitution reform debate, they seem to want to try to impose their ideology on what is now a secular society. I do not accept that New Zealand in this day and age is a religious society. Over a million of us are either not Christians, are a part of some other faith, are heathens, or are Christians who interpret the Bible in a very different way from some members in this Chamber. As anyone who has studied church or biblical history will be very well aware, every word of every single translation of the Bible has been argued over and over again all over the world and through two millennia. Like many others, I do not accept that the word of God is about condemning homosexuals as unrighteous, wicked, or evil.

When speaking on Part 1 yesterday I shared with the Committee the dilemma of constituency members as they grapple with the fact that their constituents have a valid expectation that they will represent them in this House, and with their responsibility to vote in the interests of all New Zealanders, especially minorities. That is not easy. In speaking to Part 2, I want to continue to try to explain to members what I see as the fundamental problem with this legislation.

As I mentioned yesterday, a survey showed that my electorate is deeply divided over the issue, and following the vote on the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in 1986, I had to live with the fact that I knew in my heart that I had, in my view, voted wrongly on that legislation. So I wanted to support this bill, but my problem—and Part 2 really emphasises it—is that it is a real shame that something as important as this bill will not pass through the House with clear majority support. I believe that it would have been possible to draft legislation that supported same-sex couples—and maybe heterosexual couples as well—being able to enter into legally recognised partnerships that would have had the overwhelming support of this House.

I ask those who are promoting this legislation why they went about it this way. Why draw up a bill that so clearly parallels the Marriage Act? Why could it not have been possible to draw up legislation that spelt out the legal requirements, simply the fundamental process, that couples would have to go through to obtain a registration certificate that registered their relationship, then left them with the freedom—and I would have thought this would be so important to so many people—to celebrate that partnership or union in whatever way they wanted? Why, with this legislation that will probably be passed in 2004, are we bothering to put into law stuff that is totally unnecessary? There is stuff in this bill that is totally unnecessary to achieve the long-term legal commitment wanted by the people who want this legislation. That is what I ask those who are promoting the bill.

It is not too late now to amend this legislation so that it gets the overwhelming support of Parliament. I believe that my constituency could clearly support this legislation if it were not seen to parallel the Marriage Act, and if it set out just the fundamental legal requirements for a civil partnership, to provide for a long-term legal commitment between same-sex couples, or whomever. I believe that my constituency would support that. But what troubles my constituents so much is that this legislation so clearly parallels the Marriage Act.

I have not heard in this debate why that has been necessary. Why was it not possible, through wider discussion across the House, to work out legislation that could have had an overwhelming mandate from this Parliament? I think that would have been hugely desirable for New Zealand. I believe that it would have been possible to have law addressing this problem passed by a two-thirds or three-quarters majority of this House, and I think that would have been better.

It is not too late now. It is possible to make amendments to this legislation that I think could receive the overwhelming support of Parliament, because I know there are many members in Parliament who do not want to deprive same-sex couples of the right to be able to register their relationship and have it recognised. I think there are many people who feel quite deeply about that and who want to see it available to same-sex couples. The problem is that the way this legislation is drafted offends people, and that is unnecessary. Why do people who are promoting and supporting this legislation want civil union to look like marriage? I want to hear the answer to that.

This is a first for me, in that I do not think I have ever spoken in the House before on a conscience bill, even though I have voted on many of them.

💬 Dianne Yates: Yes, you have.

The member is quite right. I spoke in the debate on the prostitution legislation. The Civil Union Bill is a conscience bill, and I greatly respect views that are sincerely held, regardless of which side of the issue people are on and regardless of whether they agree or disagree with me. I am in this House as the elected member for New Plymouth because people expect me to exercise my vote according to what I believe, and, if they do not support me in that, then they can vote for a different person. There will be times when people disagree with the way I vote on issues, and there will be times when they agree with the way I vote. Sometimes I disagree with my colleagues—it happens occasionally.

I do not support a referendum on this issue. Even though some people who are against this bill, as I am, want a referendum as a next step in trying to get another bite at the issue, as it were, I do not support that. The reason is that if we as members of Parliament have to poll our electorates to find out what our conscience and our beliefs should be, then we should seriously consider whether we should be in Parliament. We as MPs are elected by the people to make decisions on their behalf, and if members have to poll their electorates to find out whether 50.1 percent of people view an issue one way and 49.9 percent another way, and therefore they should go with the 50.1 percent, then they should not be here, because they do not have the ability to make a conscience vote. They should walk out of the door and leave it to those who can make a conscious decision on a conscience matter.

Some members who support the bill have told the Committee that those who have struggled to make a decision and who, after weighing up all the issues, have decided to vote for the bill, have real courage. There are some for whom no doubt that is the case. For others of us it actually takes a bit of courage to weigh up the issues and then make a decision not to support the bill. But I respect both those who support it and those who have made a decision not to support it, provided they are honest and valid in their decision processes.

I have had to think hard about this bill because of one experience I have had. It happened some years ago to a friend of mine who is gay and was living with a partner. They had a home together and had lived together for some years. They had cars, a dog, and all the things a family would have, except that they were a gay couple. The partner of my friend died, and the difficulty for the survivor was that at the funeral he was made to feel an outcast. He was not allowed to make decisions, because the family of the dead partner made them. I have struggled in respect of this bill only for that reason. The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill fixes those issues.

Like Gordon Copeland, I support and argue that the Homosexual Law Reform Act did the right thing in decriminalising homosexuality so that homosexuals were no longer treated as criminals. But this takes it a step further and normalises relationships that are not the norm for the public. In my view, people can already have a contract: they can stand up in front of their family and friends and say: “We are devoted to each other.” They can formally have a ceremony in front of their friends, even though they are a same-sex couple—if they are. They can make contractual arrangements, through the law, on property and all sorts of other issues. In respect of this type of legislation, we should learn from the experience of others. The Dutch Government took this step some years ago when it introduced a similar law. But it got itself into all sorts of difficulty over things like superannuation entitlements, etc. This bill is not a step that I support.

I would like to pick up on the comments made by the Hon Harry Duynhoven. I was looking forward to his contribution, and I am looking forward to hearing Mr Tamihere, Mr Samuels, and Mr O’Connor. I know they are the real blokes in the Government who are prepared to stand and argue against this legislation, because they simply do not believe in it. As Mr Duynhoven said, it takes some courage to weigh up the facts and come to a decision that is going against the tide. I thought it might be useful to remind Mr Barnett—who came to the Chamber yesterday and had great glee in getting out the Ashburton Guardian and quoting the editorials. I thought I would return the favour.

I was in Timaru last evening and I picked up the Timaru Herald. I have here this morning’s edition, and of the first four letters to the editor not one of them supports this bill—not one. This one is noteworthy and quite short: “The Government says the Civil Union Bill has nothing to do with sexuality. To me it is a pity that the parents of Aoraki Labour MP Jim Sutton, David Benson-Pope, and other bill supporters did not choose a same-sex marriage.” I very much happen to concur with that sentiment.

The previous speaker, Mr Duynhoven, was arguing that we do not need a referendum to determine these sorts of issues, because as elected members of Parliament we should be able to come here and make these calls ourselves. I accept the general thrust of what he is saying, except that, when we are facing an issue where there has been so much misinformation, deliberately fed into the public consciousness, people are not making a decision based on the facts.

💬 Edwin Perry: They’re being fooled.

They are. The only way this issue can be resolved is to put the facts in the public domain so that people in this country can make an informed decision. The Government will not have a bar of that—for one simple reason. When all the smoke clears, the fact around this bill is that it is about homosexual marriage. But the overwhelming view of the people of New Zealand is that they do not want a bar of that.

Mr Barnett took great glee yesterday in standing here and quoting all sorts of poll statistics, but what he did not say was that the public has not had the question put to them: “Do you want, or would you support, gay marriage?”. Because when that question has been asked of people, they have resoundingly rejected the notion in overwhelming numbers. The Timaru Herald is just a sample of what people are saying, all over the country. The Press this morning has letters to the editor on the same tack. The same applies to the New Zealand Herald, and the Dominion Post but those members refuse to acknowledge that fact.

Mr Hughes took a call yesterday and argued for everything—but in name—for gay marriage. He just did not quite have the courage of his convictions—or was just not able to articulate or admit that what he was actually saying was that this bill is about gay marriage. He said that he wanted people’s loving relationships recognised in a formal sense. I say to Mr Hughes that that is what marriage does. I would have thought that you would—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Do not bring the Chair into the debate.

Sorry. I would have thought that that member would have had the courage of his convictions—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, the member will be seated. The member knows, because he has been here long enough, that he cannot imply, it is a personal reflection, that someone lacks courage. The member will withdraw.

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I certainly do not wish to dispute your ruling in respect of the reference to “courage”, and I am sure my colleague will do the right thing in that respect, but I did notice that you were particularly quick to jump on Mr Connell when he brought you into the debate. I have been down here now since about 10 to 10 this morning, and note that a number of members who have been speaking in quite an impassioned way about this legislation have from time to time slipped into bringing the Chair into the debate, and I just ask that, for the sake of consistency, you measure that when others are making their contributions following Mr Connell’s.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the honourable member for his contribution, and refer him to Speaker’s ruling 70/4. I call Mr Connell and remind him to withdraw the comment.

I withdraw. Mr Nandor Tanczos when speaking yesterday argued against binding referenda, as well. I thought it was highly ironic, because the only reason that the member is here is by virtue of a binding referendum.

I think one of the unintended and unfortunate consequences of this bill, and the opposition to it generated by certain churches—by no means all—is that it has legitimised the expression of the most unchristian-like intolerance, prejudice, and even bigotry against homosexuals in our community; and thousands of New Zealanders now seem to feel that it is acceptable to make judgmental, derogatory, and, in my view, bigoted comments in public about homosexuals. I am certain that many gays and lesbians must have been deeply hurt, deeply distressed, and, indeed, even traumatised by some of the intolerant remarks that have been made over the past few weeks.

In a letter in the Dominion Post yesterday, a 23-year-old person, a homosexual, said: “If you told a heterosexual person that they were disgusting and should refrain from falling in love or acting upon their love because it wasn’t ‘normal’, they would feel judged and attacked, not only in their sexuality but in everything that they are as a person.” That sums up how people in the community are feeling, as a result of the unleashing and legitimising of this sort of intolerance in our society.

We need to remember that homosexuals are a minority that has suffered huge discrimination and persecution throughout history. We have all heard about how the Jewish people were persecuted in Nazi Germany, but how many of us have heard about the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany? About 10,000 homosexuals were imprisoned in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, and many of them died. We have all heard about the Jewish people who were forced to wear the yellow Star of David, but how many of us know that anyone who was identified as a homosexual in Nazi Germany was forced to wear a pink triangle identifying him or her as homosexual? That badge singled out those people for persecution, for the gas chambers, and even for death.

So we have a duty in this House, as legislators, to protect this discriminated against minority—and any other minority—to ensure they are not subject to further discrimination and abuse. I am proud of members like Katherine Rich, Heather Roy, Clem Simich, etc., who have not bowed to what must be very considerable pressure upon them.

Our job as legislators here today is to sort out the truth from the fiction, the wheat from the chaff, and the emotional from the rational. We need to ask ourselves whether there is a rational basis for the claims of the Opposition that this bill will undermine marriage, undermine social and moral standards, institutionalise immorality—as one letter I have just received has stated—and that it is a slippery slope that will lead to social decay in our society.

Fortunately, we are in a position to make this judgment, because we can look at countries that already have legislation that is similar to this. Countries such as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have had civil union legislation or its equivalent for 20 years in the case of Sweden and 15 in the case of Denmark. If the claims of our opponents are rationally based rather than just emotional scaremongering and intolerance, we would inevitably see in Denmark and in Sweden a steep decline in marriage rates or a slow or swift decline in moral and social standards, and immorality and social decay. We would have to see that if their claims are right. We would expect to find in Denmark—which has a population of 4 million; a similar size to New Zealand—that Shakespeare was right and that there was something rotten in the State of Denmark ever since it passed the 1989 civil union, or its equivalent, bill. So I asked the library to look up Denmark’s marriage rates, and I found that they have remained stable, in fact they have slightly increased, since the passage of the bill there. In 1990, a year after the bill came in, the rate was 6.1. Now it is 6.8.

I would like to pick up on one comment that Moana Mackey made, which I think is a very relevant comment. She confirmed that once the Homosexual Law Reform Bill was passed, this would be just another step. I think there is a lot of relevance in that—that this step is just another step.

Even in the debate in this House, I have heard much about the intolerance of those who have a Christian belief or even a religious belief. Just last weekend I was speaking to a pastor from Canada. In Canada they do have same-sex marriages, and the same intolerance I am hearing to my viewpoint—which I believe is a viewpoint held by a large number of New Zealanders whether or not they have a religious belief—that marriage needs to be built and kept for what it is in this country. That Minister told me that gay and lesbian communities now target churches and come to them asking to be married. When churches refuse to marry them, they then go to the Government and request that the churches’ licence to marry people is removed from them. So let me assure members that if this becomes normalised, we are another step further to hate speech. I have heard many say that the Church is free to preach from the word of God, but I dispute that. I believe that the Church will not be able to do that.

They tell me that a tree is known by the fruit it produces. If you give me an apple off an apple tree and you try to convince me that it is an orange—

💬 Simon Power: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise to the member for interrupting him, but notwithstanding Speaker’s ruling 70/4, the member on his feet has now twice brought you into the debate. You were very quick to jump on Mr Connell when he did it once. So far that has not been the case with members before and following Mr Connell’s speech. I apologise to the member on his feet for interrupting him but I ask for some consistent ruling from the Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I appreciate that. I did not hear it, and had I done so I would have called the member to order. Can I just say to the member that it is inappropriate to bring the presiding officer into the debate. He must speak in a different form, and I would appreciate the member doing so in future.

I apologise; I did not realise I had brought the Chair into the debate.

So members will never convince me that an apple tree is an orange tree, and I bring this point up because I have heard much about the fact that if this bill is passed it will make no difference to society. Let us think back on the laws we have changed. If the fruit from marriage is children, let us seriously think of what has happened to our society. As we have changed the law and the moral base in our nation, I ask whether the product of the womb is improving, or not. I would challenge that it is not.

It grieves me that last week I saw in this nation we had had three murders in one day. I think it is well-timed that we need to understand that the tree of marriage needs some fertiliser. It needs some watering. It does not need watering down, because our next generation comes only from the product of a man and a woman.

We can talk about gay and lesbian couples bringing up their children, but let me assure us all here that each child has a father and a mother. I would encourage members of the Committee to read Gordon Copeland’s speech; I think he covered many of these aspects in great detail.

If we have a moral shift on a human right, it is always a progression. If, for example, we take a woman’s right to choose on abortion, we can ask what that has led to. It has led now to the killing of 17,500 of the children in this nation per year—one every 28 seconds. Members tried to pass legislation called the Death with Dignity Bill. So what are we trying to produce by legislation—a perfect person or a perfect society? I do not think we are improving the outcomes of our society, and I believe one of the fundamental reasons is that we have failed to esteem the importance of the family.

I want to begin by addressing a point that David Parker made yesterday, when he said that giving rights to minorities does not take anything away from the majority. I say that yes, that is true, unless those rights of the majority are dependent on the oppression of a minority. Ending slavery took something away from American slave owners, because it removed their supply of free labour provided by kidnapped African people. My concern is that much of the debate on this bill seems to be based on the assumption that giving rights to gay people will somehow disadvantage the majority of heterosexual people. What they are saying is that the State should privilege them in order to allow them to continue to feel superior, and that is not a justifiable use of the law. Gay people are becoming a scapegoat for some of the members of this Parliament and for people in our society. Marriage is not from the State; it does not come from the State. The State simply recognised at a point in history what already existed, and that is exactly what we are doing in this legislation. We are simply recognising a situation that already exists, which is that gay people can have long-term, committed relationships, and we are simply allowing the law to recognise that. Marriage exists because it fills a human need, and that is what this bill addresses.

Some of this debate has been odious. Lynne Pillay talked about some of the comments made by Dail Jones, for example. During the second reading debate Mr Jones described himself as a bigot and a redneck. That is how he described himself, so we should not be surprised at the kinds of things that he said. He has become a caricature of what he is trying to represent.

💬 Peter Brown: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I listened carefully to my colleague Dail Jones, in terms of how he described himself. In no way did he describe himself in the manner that—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, no. Can the member please be seated; I am on my feet. If there has been a misrepresentation, then that fact should be brought up at the end of a member’s speech. I refer the member to Speaker’s ruling 35/3.

I invite members of the public to check Hansard and see what he actually said. Some people—for example, Mr Eckhoff—say that they oppose the legislation because children—

💬 Ron Mark: He said: “Some people might say”.

I do not think that is what he said, but we can check that in Hansard. Mr Eckhoff says he opposes the bill because children may be teased in school if they have gay parents. Some of the comments of some of the members of this Parliament have been at least as childishly callous and casually cruel as any schoolyard comment.

Some members have said they oppose civil union because mums and dads make the best families—that children need to grow up with a mother and a father. That may or may not be the case. I think that what is important is that there is love in the family. I would rather see a child grow up with two loving homosexual parents than grow up with heterosexual parents who fight and abuse each other and the children. So it is the love that is important. But we can also say that children will grow up better if they live in a family with a decent income—that is a true comment. So what do we do with low-income families? Do we forbid them to get married? No. We look at how we can support low-income families to raise their children. That is what this bill is about. Gay families already exist. There are already families in this country in which children are growing up with gay parents. This bill will allow those families some protection in the law.

Marriage is not a competition. The Hon Nick Smith likened marriage to the All Blacks. He said that if we allowed just anyone to become a member of the All Blacks, that would devalue our national rugby team. No, the All Blacks are merely the best rugby players in the country. Rugby is strengthened by the number of people who participate in it. In fact, the more people there are who play club rugby, the stronger the All Blacks will be. So that member put forward a totally fallacious analogy.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I would like to make two points. First of all, I have just checked with my colleague as to whether he ever described himself as a bigot. He did not. Over the telephone he told me how he described himself, which was basically as a “redneck conservative”. There is a total difference in meaning between the words “bigot” and “redneck conservative”. I take offence that the member used that term and has been allowed to get away with it. My second point is that if we allow members to carry on for a 5-minute speech when offence is taken in the course of it, and then stand and take the point of order at the end, we are allowing them carte blanche to say anything. That is not acceptable.

I apologise. I genuinely thought that that was what the member had said. Mr Brown pointed out that the member described himself as a redneck but not as a bigot. That is fair enough. I withdraw my comment regarding the word “bigot”.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member for that.

That point raises an interesting question, which may require a ruling from you, Mr Chairman. Is it possible for a member to take offence at comments directed at a different member altogether? It may be worth your ruling on that point. In the absence of the member who is allegedly offended, is it possible for another member to take offence on that member’s behalf?

I draw the Chairman’s attention to the fact that if I am correct, nobody has taken more points of order than the honourable Simon Power over aspersions cast against the leader of the party he belongs to when National’s leader has not been in the Chamber.

The member knows he has gone too far. Members have had their fun. I refer members to Speaker’s ruling 38/4—I was asked for a ruling, and members on my left are not actually listening—which states: “Words or phrases used robustly in debate but which do not impugn the honour of a member will not be ruled out of order.” It is really up to the member concerned—if that member took offence on a personal basis because he or she was the member who was referred to—to be in the Chamber.

I rise to take my first call in the debate, and I do so prompted by a rather interesting speech from a person I do have some time for, although some could argue that he was not elected to the House but passed into it by legislation—the Hon Harry Duynhoven. He raised questions around the issue of putting the bill to a referendum to allow the people to decide as to whether it should pass through Parliament, at all.

I take up a couple of points that were made by Mr Duynhoven. The first point is the statement that we should not put take a poll of the people in order to find out whether they feel that this legislation is acceptable. That is a rather interesting statement, coming, as it does, from a member of the most poll-driven party in the history of this country. There has been no party or Government in the history of this nation that has been more driven by its consistent, behind-the-scenes, taxpayer-funded polling. In fact, I had the comment made to me that people suspect very strongly that certain members of Cabinet and the Government take a poll before they even get out of bed to decide whether it is a good idea to appear in public that day.

💬 Brian Connell: Where did that come from?

It came from the honourable Mr Brian Connell. The other point I want to make is that Harry Duynhoven and the Government should wake up. We are now a Parliament full of MMP MPs—men and women who were elected here after 1996 as a result of a referendum in which the country spoke very loudly and very firmly on the need for change. We have trumpeted all over the country about what a great and wonderful thing that was. We have exhorted the virtues of the new House—its diversity, its mixture of different ethnic groups, its diverse views and philosophies, and its greater representation of different parties. How did that come to be? It came to be as a result of a referendum. The public gave its verdict. It is a little bit strange for a member to then stand up and say that we should not have a referendum.

The idea of a referendum is not new to New Zealand First. It is an old idea. Our policy on decriminalisation of marijuana is that we can live with the result if the public can. We would have a referendum, make it binding, and the result would be the decision. That is a policy this party has had since 1993. I was one of the first people in my caucus to argue for the idea of a referendum on conscience issues. I was one of the first to argue for it around the question of the death penalty. I know there is a calling out there for the death penalty for people who commit heinous crimes on children in particular. But it is not an idea that fits well with a large slice of New Zealand, and my argument was always that we should put it to the people. If the people are fair, just, and know what they want, they will tell us. We as a Parliament then have a simple direction as to what to do in order to meet the people’s expectations. I do not see anything wrong with that.

The only reason one would vote against such a notion would be if one was scared. Mr Duynhoven should not talk to me about needing the courage to come here and make a decision off one’s own bat. There are plenty of people in the House who have courage and have convictions and can stand up for the things they believe in. Indeed, this bill is before the Committee because Mr Tim Barnett has displayed the courage necessary to put the issue forward and to campaign on it. He will take the decision of the public if, at the end of the day, the people of the Christchurch Central electorate say they have had enough of it and do not re-elect him. So be it. But therein is the other point, and Mr Duynhoven made that point, too. He said that if the public do not like his decision, they will not re-elect him.

There is only one flaw in that argument. We know that there are certain safe seats in this country in which constituents still do not have their head around MMP. I know that if I put a dead horse with a red ribbon around its neck in the race in Christchurch East, and just said it was a Labour horse, it would win—

💬 Simon Power: It’s won twice.

—yes, twice—and that is the fact of the matter. The referendum idea is the one way in which we could get a clear direction from the people of New Zealand as to whether they want this bill. I asked the opponents of the referendum idea what they are scared of. If the polls are suggesting that the public wants this legislation, what are they scared of? They should vote for it.

In the nearly 2 hours since 9 a.m. I have listened to many speeches, and I think that only three were memorable. One was a draught of cool water from Dr Cullen, who spoke about the connection, or lack of connection, between this bill and religion, and about the religious view of marriage. Then Dr Lockwood Smith asked why the Labour Government had not put forward something that would achieve exactly the same legal objectives and end discrimination in terms of legal privilege, preference, or disability, but would not stick it up the noses of the 20, 30, or 40 percent of New Zealanders who have values similar to those that nearly everyone held 30 or 40 years ago. In other words, Dr Smith may not have referred to Dr Cullen’s address, but he was referring to the fact, which is evident in this debate, that no one wants to talk about the words.

No one is looking at what this law actually does or does not do. No one is looking at the clauses, because they are all busy making precious statements about their own morality and world view—smug speeches that support one side or the other, but those primarily made by the proponents of this bill are about how intellectually superior they feel to the poor, benighted traditionalists who happen not to agree with their sexual morality. This bill is Parliament acting as a bunch of priests. Instead of Parliament approaching this and asking what the law provides, or what the law ought to do about status, it is setting out to try to decree respect—it is not tolerance, legal permission, or legal rights and abilities that are being claimed, but respect.

I think Sue Kedgley for the Greens said it, as her entire speech was about how Parliament must make sure that people are not traumatised by derogatory remarks or feel judged and attacked. That is why I will vote against this bill. When I asked the Justice and Electoral Committee for some assurance that this would not be converted by activist judges, the Advertising Standards Authority, film censors, or anyone else who exercises authority delegated from this Parliament, into an instruction that their role was now to decree respect instead of protecting freedom, I could not get it. In fact, the Labour members scoffed at the idea that we should revisit the absurd provisions of the Human Rights Act that state that no one can discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation or marital status. That is where the law should stop. It should state that the State cannot discriminate on those grounds; that the coercive powers of the State should not decree someone’s morality. But for private individuals, how else do they express their views? By what other way do ordinary people—people other than the elite who stand in this Chamber and pontificate—try to propagate and promote their values except by drawing distinctions and acting on them? The law should protect everyone from coercion or violence.

When I look at this bill, I see that it is simply a deliberate mimicry. It is deliberately the revenge of that coterie, as someone explained it, of covert lesbians and gays who have authority within the Labour Party. It is their revenge on straight New Zealanders. It could so easily have been done along the lines of the Worth amendments. This is not just a criticism of the Labour Party. I am stunned that I have not heard Richard Worth explain this morning why his amendments would have made such a better job without trying to decree respect. He would have amended the law in a way that was more facilitatory, cheaper, easier to operate, easier for everyone to understand, and less discriminatory because it would have covered people in caring, committed, stable, and loving relationships who did not consider that those relationships needed to be seen as sexual. That would have been the way to approach this legislation if all one was concerned about was ending discrimination and legal disability, making sure that people who loved each other got hospital visiting rights, could go to the mortuary, could decide how the burial went, or were able to access superannuation benefits. All of that could have been done without this fatuous provision that has a $5,000 fine for someone who pretends to be a marriage celebrant. Why, when the marriage contract does not specify content and when the words that are uttered are only about identifying the parties and stating that one wants to be in a civil union?

I am pleased to follow on from that member. I quite enjoy following on from people who can take words and make them mean what they want them to mean at any particular point in time in a debate. I have a daughter who is a lawyer, and one thing I have learnt about lawyers is that they can make an argument around any position—as long as they are getting well paid for it. There are two professions: the oldest profession, of course, and that of lawyers, which is the second-oldest profession. Both of them have pretty similar ideals.

I wish to comment on the debate that has been held so far. I think that the strongest statement against proceeding with this bill has come from the Hon Bill English, who at least has drawn attention to the fact that a tandem piece of legislation needs to come into being as well, at some point in time. That has been the strongest, principled position against passing the bill at this stage. He said that we should hang on until the second bill was ready to go. That is it; that has been all. There has been no other good, logical, strong reason not to proceed with this bill at this time—none at all.

Members fascinate me. They stand up and go on about how difficult it will be to exercise a conscience and how important it is to have a referendum. I really enjoyed Sue Kedgley’s speech. It is not often that I listen to Sue Kedgley and agree with her, but a lot of what she said was absolutely dead right and bang on the money. It is extraordinarily clear to me that if we run a referendum it will not be about civil unions. The debate will be to demonise homosexuality—full stop. That will be the debate.

I have mentioned what Brian Tāmaki and others will do during that debate. We will see 800,000 people petitioned again, we will see the ghost of Norman Jones revisited upon us, and the doomsayers will say that society as we know it is dead and will become even more dead as a result of this legislation.

But we all know that the experience since 1986 has been absolutely to the contrary. Will somebody look around this room and tell me who is homosexual and how we can tell? Will somebody look around the gallery and tell me who is homosexual and how we can tell?

💬 Brian Connell: Tim Barnett.

How can the member tell how anybody is homosexual?

💬 Brian Connell: Because you told me.

Exactly. As the member said, somebody is because somebody said so. There we go—wonderful stuff!

I lived in the United States as a kid. I will tell members about some other intolerance that I lived with and had to put up with as a child—intolerance for black people. People were scared of black people. One thing I will never forget as a child was taking part in a march in my town, after four children—[Interruption]

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the member. He will have a minute added to his time. The reason is simple. Mr Chairperson directed that there would be no continuous barrage of interjections and that people’s rights to be heard would be respected in this Chamber. This is an emotional and passionate issue for many people. As members of Parliament, with people out there listening to us, we should have respect for others. Mr Peck has 2 minutes and 30 seconds remaining.

I took part in a march in my town, because four little children in Alabama had been killed by a bomb from a bunch of racists who were so scared of black people and the right of those people to ride on buses that they decided to become violent.

There are people in our society now who will become violent over homosexuality. That is just as wrong as what happened to those four little children. I was hugely delighted to read in the newspaper, as I was going to speak to a Grey Power meeting not that long ago, that one of those bombers was finally caught, 35 years after the act. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the act that he carried out on that occasion.

One of the reasons why my family immigrated to New Zealand was that it was a tolerant, secular society, and in a tolerant, secular society we tolerate differences. What appals me about this debate is that we cannot for the life of us seem to get our heads around the fact that people are people. Whatever they had for breakfast or whatever they did on Sunday does not change the fact that they are people, and all people have the right to dignity and respect.

Having listened to some who have gone through the agony of having to put up with this debate and revisit it time and time again, I ask members to put themselves in their position for a moment. Can members imagine always being told by what one heard in Parliament and read in the newspaper that one was not a fit and proper human being, that one could not have a fit and proper relationship, and that one should have nothing to do with one’s whānau—the children one might have fathered or been a mother to, or one’s uncles and aunties or nephews and nieces—because of one’s sexual orientation?

That is what is wrong. It is time we grew up. Members can put up all the arguments they like for voting on a referendum now, but the truth of the matter is that holding a referendum means that those people will have to relive that nightmare. As a member of Parliament, I will not see that visited on anybody in this nation.

I certainly do not condone any violence towards homosexuals in this country. But, despite the previous member’s speech, I do not believe that that would be the outcome of a properly handled referendum in this country. It would simply be an opportunity for people to share their views on this very important subject. Nor do I condone the Government introducing legislation against hate speech into Parliament at some time in the future. That would restrict the ability of any New Zealander to have an opinion about homosexuality. I think that the honourable member Stephen Franks made that point very clear in his speech. What concerns many New Zealanders as they look at this legislation is that they see it is one more step towards shutting down any kind of opposition to a homosexual lifestyle. I believe that New Zealanders should be free to have their own moral views and to be able to express their opinions when they feel that they need to.

I need to address the amendment that I have on the Table for this legislation before we run out of calls, and I will spend the rest of my speech on doing so. It is an amendment to clause 18. My colleague Marc Alexander also has an amendment to remove clauses 17 and 18 from the bill altogether. We believe that that is the Trojan Horse in this legislation whereby people will be able to access marriage officially while in a same-sex relationship, because of the ability within the bill to convert from civil union to marriage. Currently the bill states that couples can do that only if they are eligible to marry. We understand that under the current interpretation of the Marriage Act, marriage is for men and women. But we do not hold any confidence that that may not be overturned in the future by judicial activism, which we have seen occur in the past. I simply want to put the issue beyond all doubt by making an amendment to clause 18 that adds the words “and who are a man and a woman”, so that it can be very clear that the intention of Parliament, if this bill passes, is that only those civil unions that are between a man and a woman could ever transfer to marriage officially. I do not see that as an unreasonable request.

If the supporters of this legislation are adamant about the fact that it is not a step towards gay marriage, then let us make it clear in the legislation that that cannot occur in the future. I believe the contrary to that is true. I believe that this bill is a Trojan Horse. I cannot see any reason why those transfer clauses are in this bill, except to allow a same-sex couple who are in a civil union to go to court in the future and say that they are being discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation, and to take an appeal right through to the Supreme Court. I believe it is entirely possible that the Supreme Court would overturn the will of Parliament and begin to give gay marriage to civil union partners. The thing that concerns us about this bill is that civil union is made so much like marriage that it is possible to flip-flop between the two. Why on earth do we want heterosexuals to have civil unions, when they could have civil marriages anyway under the current law? That simply does not make sense.

A number of speakers have raised the issue of the international precedents. They have happily cited the European countries that have provided for civil unions and for marriage. One of them that has not been referred to, of course, is the Netherlands, which has had civil unions or gay marriage since 1999. In the Netherlands’ 5 years of experience, the surveys have shown that each civil union lasts for an average of 18 months. It is entirely the right of people to have civil relationships, but we ought to look at the facts about what those civil unions have produced there: relationships that last, on average, 18 months. The surveys show that during those 18 months, people have also had up to six or eight partners. In a free society people are entirely free to do that if they wish to do so, but that is not a relationship that we should consider putting children into. Children need more than 18 months in order to grow up and mature. They need to have a stable relationship between a mother and father over a period of at least 20 years, in order to be able to grow to maturity and to have the benefits of the love and care of those individuals. It is not enough just to be loving and caring at the beginning of a relationship. That love and care has to continue throughout a lifetime, in order to provide a stable relationship in which children can grow, mature, and become adults themselves. One of the submitters who came to the Justice and Electoral Committee said that his studies of same-sex relationships over the entire world had found that the average length of those relationships was 2 years. We know that marriages break down and that de facto heterosexual couples break up, but their average, internationally, is 17 years. That is a much better average than 2 years.

Following on from Larry Baldock, I would like to point out to him and to the Committee that one does not have to condone violence; one merely has to encourage it. We have received very many pieces of correspondence on this legislation in the recent period. The worst that could be said about the correspondence we received in favour of the bill is that some people have used the word “marriage” rather than “civil union”. I think it is regrettable if they do that, because we are not bringing in same-sex marriage. But the language used in a fair proportion of the correspondence against the bill has been quite extraordinary. I do not think any of it would condone violence, but a lot of it would encourage violence.

I would like to quote three short passages to the Committee from letters that I have received. They are also contained in submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee, so they are on the official record of the House. The first is from a gentleman in Redwood in Christchurch, who states: “These bills are short-sighted attempts to satisfy the desire of a very small minority. While everyone would be affected, it is very obvious that the only people who really benefit from these changes are same-sex, sick, homosexual people who need urgent treatment rather than listening.” Then I turn to Mrs M A Collis of Timaru: “God created Adam and Eve—he did not create TWO Adams or TWO Eves!! In my thinking gay people are a blot on society, unhealthy, repugnant, so why try to bring in a Civil Union Bill?”. Lastly I turn to a submission from an 11-year-old girl: “The Bible mentions that God gave the homosexuals over to a debased mind to do things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, having evil minds, to be proud, violent boasters, haters of God, disobedient, unforgiving, unloving backbiters and whisperers. It also mentions that they are worthy of death”.

That is the kind of language that we have been receiving from people who are opposed to this legislation. I cannot say that any one of those submissions condones violence. They come as close to endorsing hatred against a section of our community as I can imagine. Personally, I have never supported hate-speech legislation. The Government Administration Committee is holding an inquiry on hate speech at the moment. I have a profound belief in freedom of speech. I think it is important that we have an inquiry on hate speech—not least because the United Nations has repeatedly stated in its audit of our human rights law that we do not protect people from hate speech in the way that many other countries do. So I think the debate is worth having, but I am certainly not convinced that we should, as a result, label people such as those who have written those submissions as criminal. I do think that we, as politicians elected to positions here, need to reflect on whether that kind of language should be able to influence our minds towards a significant section of our community that absolutely has a recorded history—not only in New Zealand but worldwide—of being the victim of discrimination of the most hideous kind.

I must end by pointing out that one of the four groups of people targeted in Nazi Germany for concentration camps—additional to the Jews, the clergy, and the gypsies or Romanies—was homosexuals, who died in gas chambers in their thousands. That was no mistake. It happened because they were a group identified as a threat to that society, just as some speakers in this Chamber, and others, claim that people like me are some kind of hideous threat to our society today.

I listened to the last speaker, as I have done throughout the debate, with some interest. That person brings a diversity to the Parliament, and I congratulate him on that. I think that that is a good thing in an open, compassionate society. But the very strength of his argument demonstrates the reason why I am opposing this legislation. He said he has pulled out, via this process, the worst aspects of society through the email he has received. I have received email of a similar kind because I have been opposing the legislation. That is one of the strongest reasons why we—120 individuals—should not be making this decision under this process. It is one of the strongest arguments why this decision should be taken via referendum in society.

I say to the Parliament today that I oppose this legislation for a number of reasons. The first is that it can be described as nothing more than social engineering. Quite frankly, New Zealanders, as a general rule, are opposed to that. They have had enough of it. They have seen it for 6 years now, and they are certainly not in favour of it. It is championed by the Prime Minister; there is no question about that. In fact, I suspect that this legislation would not have the numbers it has if it had not been for some on the other side, despite the fact that this is supposed to be a conscience vote, being fairly heavily spoken to by the leadership of their party.

Also, I ask what we are trying to fix if nothing is broken. I would like to know where the problem is, in the legal sense. Certainly no problem was identified through the select committee process, as I understand it. Certainly no legal problems could be identified clearly through that process. I say to members opposite that I have been in what I guess one could describe, for all intents and purposes, as civil unions, such as a business partnership. I ask what is wrong with that mechanism, and what is wrong with the power of attorney. I have heard no strong argument yet that I can hang my hat on that justifies the process we are going through and the need for this legislation.

The reason I oppose it is that it actually does attack what has been a cultural tradition in the Western developed world, and around the world, of marriage. People say that it does not. I have heard the arguments that it does not threaten marriage. Well, I ask what the legislation does do in terms of marriage. Does it enhance marriage? Is the relationship of those who are married today changed in any way by it? The relationship is changed only to the extent that the legislation offers another option. I ask the people out there who believe that that is a good idea or a good option, what is wrong with a traditional marriage between a man and a woman as we have seen it for thousands of years. Therefore, why should those who choose to live in de facto relationships—those who choose to stay outside marriage—be swept up by this social engineering Government into a legally binding situation that they may not want to enter?

I see members on the other side shaking their heads as though that is not going to happen. I ask those members, then, to take a call and tell me that when a de facto relationship that exists today breaks up and is contested before the courts for whatever reason, in no way, under no circumstances, will that situation be influenced by the passing of this legislation.

💬 Darren Hughes: We’ve already got law on that. We did that 2 years ago.

Well, here is the reality. If we already have law on it, then what is the purpose of this legislation? I ask the member over there who is chipping in, to take a call and absolutely, unequivocally rule out the possibility that any lawyer anywhere in New Zealand will be able to use the Civil Union Bill—or the Civil Union Act, when it becomes an Act by a slim majority in this Parliament—in any kind of court case or civil hearing against a de facto partner in a relationship that has failed. I ask the member to tell me whether lawyers will be able to use it—yes or no. I ask because a large number of people with legal backgrounds in this area have said to me that, inevitably, that situation will be swept up in this legislation, because it takes precedent. I ask the member to rule that out, for those out there who have some uncertainty about it.

I want to address some of the concerns raised by the previous speaker. I start by letting him know that civil unions will not be compulsory. People will choose to have one if they want to have one. Some of the issues the member raises probably have more to do with the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill than with this legislation, because, of course, if one does not choose to have a civil union, then one will not be in one. The select committee is still looking at some aspects around de facto couples in the—

💬 Shane Ardern: Do you rule out the question I asked?

I would rule out the question the member asked if I understood it. If a de facto couple—a couple in a relationship like the one I am in—choose not to have a civil union, then the Civil Union Bill will not impact on their de facto relationship. I was on the select committee that heard the submissions. It amuses me that the member seems to think that no issues were raised at the committee about power of attorney and about next of kin. Perhaps he should ask the National Party member whom he undoubtedly got that from, how often that member was at the committee hearing submissions.

If the member would like me to, I will tell him some of the stories people told us about what really happens. One of the more disturbing was a situation where a couple had spent an awful lot of time and money getting a formal contract drawn up that talked about burial rites, cremation rites, next of kin, the will, enduring powers of attorney, and all that stuff. When one partner passed away because of an illness, the remaining partner found that, because his relationship had no legal standing, the family was able to challenge the contract. The court actually overturned it, in his case. The select committee was quite shocked. We had thought that if one went to the time—

💬 Shane Ardern: So can you guarantee that a civil union could fix that?

I tell Mr Ardern that if one is in a civil union with someone, then it is a legally recognised relationship with next of kin. It is funny that Mr Connell is not upset about people on his side of the argument interjecting, when he was on his feet every 2 seconds whenever we answered Mr Ardern’s questions—but that is fine. The Nurses Organisation talked to the committee about the difficulties nurses face when they have a family that disapproves of a relationship on one side, and a partner on the other side, and the person who is in hospital has not been able to sign the next-of-kin forms, because he or she is unconscious on arrival, is extremely ill, has died, or whatever. That poses problems for the hospital. It is down to the individual policies of the hospital, because we have no next-of-kin laws in New Zealand. It is an extremely problematic area.

The Nurses Organisation said that it is actually up to the staff members whom the family or the partner comes to, to make that call. When the family says that a person has not been in a relationship with their son or daughter, and the partner says that he or she has been in a relationship for 20 or 30 years, then the hospital has to make a pretty unfair call. While the relationships bill does not address this, if that couple are in a civil union it might be that the partner has to come along and show the civil union certificate and say: “Look, we’re in a civil union; this is a legal, recognised relationship. It is recognised in the law that we have chosen to spend our lives together.” Then that person is the next of kin, and that eliminates that uncertainty.

There will still be couples who choose not to have a civil union who will remain in de facto relationships, and there will continue to be a problematic area in New Zealand law—as the select committee is finding out—about what one does when one gets into those extreme situations that people do not anticipate happening. I think that if even a small proportion of the 320,000 heterosexual people living in de facto unions decided to have a civil union, it would make situations like that far easier than they are today.

There were other examples before the select committee of people who were not able to get any kind of legal certainty around the status of their relationship. They had children. There was one couple who came in where the biological mother was overseas. The partner was denied access to the child, because the partner was not seen as a legal part of that family. The child was extremely distressed, but the child was not allowed to make that call, because of the child’s age. The family stepped in and said: “No, we want to be involved.”, when the family had, in fact, had nothing to do with that child for a very long time, but the partner had done.

💬 Shane Ardern: How would civil union make a difference?

Because, I say to Mr Ardern, if they had been in a civil union, then that person would have been legally recognised as being in a legal relationship under New Zealand law. When one is in a de facto relationship, that by its very definition means that it is outside the law. Those couples do not have a choice. Heterosexual de facto couples do. Unfortunately, most of them do not think as far ahead as that, or they have such an issue with marriage that they will not do that. But homosexual de facto couples do not have a choice.

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.

I thank the member who has just resumed his seat, because he does draw attention to the important point that Parliament would not be doing its job on this bill if it were to get excessively hung up on broader issues—for example, those of homosexual law reform—at the expense of looking at the bill.

It is time that we ask what this bill is not about. Is it about creating gay marriage? Clearly, it is not. Marriage remains solely available to a man and a woman. The Civil Union Bill does not alter the Marriage Act of 1955. It simply enables couples who do not wish to marry or cannot marry to have their relationships recognised at law. There has been a fair degree of comment from the Churches around the country about the fact that the Christian concept of marriage is something that should be separate and different from a civil union. It seems to me that is patently true, and this bill creates a positive and creative opportunity for Churches to say exactly what that difference is. If it is a sacred covenant that goes above and beyond a matter of contract law or legislative provision, then let the Churches say what the difference is.

The next argument is that this bill is simply about gay rights. Again, I think that a factual analysis shows that is not the case. The law currently differentiates between people according to their marital status. A number of legal rights and responsibilities apply to only those who are married couples. That is potentially discriminatory, and this bill is one way of addressing that discrimination.

It has been argued that the bill affects only a tiny minority of New Zealanders. Well, that is not true either, because one in five New Zealanders are currently living in a relationship where they have chosen not to marry. That is over 330,000 people who are potentially or directly affected by this bill.

The next argument is that this has all happened very quickly, but that is clearly not true either. The Human Rights Act was passed 11 years ago, and it outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 2001 this Government announced that it agreed that laws should be applied equally.

There is an argument that New Zealand is leading some kind of strange social engineering experiment. Well, that is not true either, because many other countries have preceded us in adopting non-discriminatory, civil union type of arrangements—for example, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, to name a few.

There is an argument that people will be able to be married and in a civil union at the same time. The answer is that, no, they will not. Here I would like to pick up on a point that the Hon Bill English made in referring to the issue of changing the form of a relationship. I think the Justice and Electoral Committee’s work is instructive. If we turn to page 6 of the very detailed select committee report, we see an extensive discussion of the amendment to change the reference to “converting” a relationship from a marriage to a civil union, to “changing form of” the relationship. The amendment was made to preserve the fact that a civil union and a marriage are different things, but not to imply that in fact the relationship between the two people has to cease to exist in order for one to be converted to the other. But what is instructive in the select committee’s report is that the ongoing distinction between the two was broadly agreed to in the committee, and remains pertinent to the House.

Finally, the argument is made that this bill should not proceed because the majority of New Zealanders are against it. Well, the Herald-DigiPoll of 2 October found the opposite: 56.4 percent of New Zealanders were in favour of civil unions, and only 39.3 percent were against. The email traffic to my parliamentary office has been broadly in favour of this bill passing—not, I might add, simply because it provides equal rights to homosexual New Zealanders, but because it removes discrimination that could apply perniciously against various New Zealanders in various states of relationships.

I am pleased that this discussion has got over the homosexuality issue as we have proceeded to debate the text of the bill. I hope that will continue, because the more it does so, I think, the less threatening the bill will become to members opposite and to New Zealanders, and the more sensible it will be in removing existing discriminatory provisions.

Is there not a real irony when one Labour speaker after another—with a couple of others in-between—completely contradicts what the previous Labour speaker said? In my submission earlier, I said that the difficulty I have with the Civil Union Bill proposal is that 300,000-odd New Zealanders, almost as an unintended consequence, will be swept up into some kind of legal debate, which they do not want, or understand, or know about, if their relationship fails. That was strongly rebutted, not only by interjection but by the following speaker. Then the speaker who has just resumed his seat said that this bill was not about the small minority of gays whom the Opposition was opposing; it was about the 320,000 New Zealanders whom the passage of the legislation would impact on. Which is it?

We have a Minister in the chair. I put a question to the Committee before and it has not been answered. I have had legal advice that says that in the case of a de facto relationship, where the couple has chosen not to get married or enter into a civil union, there will be legal implications for that couple in the event of the failure of that relationship, not only in terms of the children in that relationship but also with regard to property. I do not know whether that is so, but what I do know is that there is a huge amount of ambiguity around it. In this debate, the Minister and the Government should clear up that ambiguity for New Zealanders who want an answer to that point.

I say to members of the Government that we should protect minorities. It is part of New Zealand’s culture. We are an egalitarian society. We should protect small minorities in this country. But this legislation does not do that.

💬 Ron Mark: I am a small minority.

That member being a New Zealand First member, I agree that he is part of a very small minority—but I do not think that was what he was referring to. The fact is that we should, if we can, pass legislation that is sensible in terms of protecting a minority, as well as protecting property, but not at the expense of what we know has been a cornerstone of New Zealand society. Coming from a very conservative seat and a traditional background, I say that I am almost an endangered species, being a white, Anglo-Saxon, married, middle-aged male in this House. I am being threatened, and the cornerstone of society is being challenged, as well.

I say to the Government that this is not an attack on those who suggest we are in some way lesser than they are in terms of our degree of enlightenment about what is acceptable in society. I ask the Government to justify what it is trying to achieve. So far, nobody has. When we take its legal argument, we see that it cannot be clearly won. When we take the emotional argument, or social argument, we see that, clearly, there is no strength to that argument. When we look at the argument about enabling people to live happily in society, we see there is no strength to that argument, either.

If a power of attorney can be challenged, as was suggested by a previous speaker, or if a legal partnership can be challenged, why, then, can a civil union not be challenged? I have a case in my electorate right now of a person who signed a pre-nuptial agreement. He has been taken to the cleaners. The argument put forward by the judge was that his partner did not fully understand the implications of signing it. Well, what happens if a gay relationship fails, after the couple have entered into a civil union, and some clever lawyer or judge says that one of the partners was not quite sure of what it was he or she was entering into? Will that case stand? Can the lawyers tell me that? The answer is that, no, they cannot. They will not know until it is tested, but it will no more stand up than a marriage agreement or any other legal agreement will stand up in those circumstances.

So the reality is I cannot see what it is that the Government is trying to fix. Clearly, this bill is no more than the Prime Minister and her team entering into a form of social engineering that most New Zealanders do not want and have not supported in any way, shape, or form. It is interesting to note that the previous speaker said that the email traffic to his office has been about even in terms of those in favour and those opposed. I have to say that, overwhelmingly, that has not been the case in terms of my email.

I do not usually speak in these conscience debates. I usually listen to the arguments and make my own mind up. But I do feel, on an important issue such as this, that a contribution is warranted. By definition, I am pretty conservative on matters such as this. I was opposed to the lowering of the drinking age and voted against that. I am opposed to voluntary euthanasia, which was also debated in this House. I voted against this bill as it was introduced, primarily because I was opposed, and am still opposed, to anything that implies gay marriage. As I say, I am still very strongly opposed to gay marriage. But I have looked into this matter quite a lot. I have done quite a lot of further study, talked to a lot of people, and come to the conclusion that this is not gay marriage. The Marriage Act has not been altered. Marriage is still between a man and a woman—a husband and a wife. Those terms are still available only to people in a marriage. So the Marriage Act has not changed and marriage has not changed, and I would not be supporting this legislation if they had. Civil unions are about a public declaration and legal recognition of loving relationships. I support loving relationships, whatever form those relationships take. Civil unions are nothing more than a public declaration and legal recognition of those loving relationships.

There are claims that civil union undermines marriage and threatens the family. Well, I think a lot of fear has been generated around that, and I apply it to myself in my own situation. I say to people that really there is nothing to fear. I am married, and I do not feel that civil unions threaten my marriage. I think that maybe a number of other things threaten marriage across the country, but certainly civil unions do not. I have a family: two wonderful boys, and now a lovely new daughter. I do not think that civil unions threaten my family. My family is not threatened and other families are not threatened, so in my view there is really nothing to fear.

I think that another thing that influenced me was the experience of watching the Destiny Church rally here. I was deeply concerned about men in black shirts standing in front of this Parliament. I was brought up as a Catholic—brought up as a Christian—and I was looking to see some kind of comparison between the Christianity I know and the Destiny Church. What I wanted to see in that demonstration was love. I saw hate in a lot of eyes. I wanted to see tolerance in those eyes, but what I saw was intolerance. I wanted to see understanding, but what I saw was ignorance. From a Christian perspective, we need to see more love, tolerance, and understanding, which in my view are some of the principles that underline this legislation.

In conclusion, this has been quite a difficult decision for me to make. I have gone into this legislation in some depth. I spent a lot of time talking to people, and I did a lot of reading. I read the report, which I thought was a good report, and I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee for a very short period of time and heard the arguments for and against the bill. In summary, civil unions are not marriage; they are not gay marriage. I need to indicate that if there had been changes to the Marriage Act, I would have opposed that. If such legislation comes before Parliament I would oppose it, and I make that point quite clear. I do feel, though, that this issue is about loving relationships and about people in loving relationships wanting to declare those publicly and to legally notify them, and I do not see anything wrong with that. This legislation does not threaten my family, nor does it undermine my marriage. I think that things have been whipped up by some people, and that fear has been created around this bill, so I ask people how the passage of this legislation will undermine their marriage or threaten their family. I do not feel that—I do not feel threatened or undermined as a result of this legislation. What I am very keen to tell the people who are in loving, supportive, respectful relationships and who want to go through some sort of ceremony where there is some kind of public and legal recognition as a result of that, that it is fine by me. I support the bill.

Once again, I will address the issue of civil unions and the objections raised by some earlier speakers against the concept of a referendum. I have been struck by the total inconsistencies I have heard. I have voted in favour of the bill at every stage so far. I am a strong advocate of a referendum, and plead with members—Government members in particular—to support the amendment in the Supplementary Order Paper. I shall tell members why. To deny a referendum just because people would campaign for and against civil unions, as one speaker said, is ridiculous. It is absolutely absurd. To deny a referendum because the issue might incite hateful comments, would be denying what is happening right now and be showing a lack of faith in the fair-mindedness of Kiwis.

I shall give some examples. During the course of this debate, someone outside the House said to me that de facto relationships are immoral. My reaction was that by inference civil unions must be immoral. I asked that person to tell that to my kids, two of whom have lived in de facto relationships for many years. One of them had lived in a de facto relationship for 8 years before he and his wife decided to get married. I am able, and most Kiwis are able, to rationalise statements such as that and to judge people accordingly. I have received videos of Sodom and Gomorrah and some rather bizarre letters, because none of those things have endeared me to the writers or senders of such material. I do not believe that fair-minded Kiwis faced with such an onslaught would treat a referendum any differently.

Take, for example, the statements made by the Catholic Church. All my children and grandchildren are Catholic, but I am not. However, I am quite able, so are other people, to sift out the inconsistencies. Do members really think that all the Catholic women who use birth control methods will seriously take every word of the Catholic Church as gospel and live by it; that they would not vote for a referendum, even though in their conscience they believe they should? Take, for example, the priest in Christchurch who has debarred a teacher from having a tagged appointment in a Catholic school, because the teacher lives in sin. In this day and age that is nonsense, and it is seen as nonsense. That priest in Rangiora is facing the scrutiny of parents, who think that is a ridiculous attitude. His words on civil unions will be taken on balance by people who are able to sort through the issue.

Some people have told me that marriage is an institution sanctified by God, and that civil unions will undermine marriage. I balance that view with the knowledge that in countless weddings God is specifically ruled out, yet by decree, they apparently have the same sanctity as a marriage conducted in a church. I have seen registry office marriages. Supposedly, advocates would say those marriages have the same status as a marriage sanctified in a religious ceremony in a church. We have seen marriages of convenience, whereby Russian husbands and Asian wives have been brought to this country, and we sit here and expect people to believe that those marriages have the same sanctity as a traditional marriage and do not undermine it. If that is the case, it leaves a big argument as to what further damage the Civil Union Bill would do to the sanctity of marriage, if those types of marriages are considered acceptable.

Virtually every person I know, and the vast majority of them are opposed to this bill, say that the Destiny Church has turned them off. These words have been used to describe the Destiny Church: “A bunch of telemarketing evangelists, a bunch of Jonestown acolytes, zealots, really scary people, people you wouldn’t invite to dinner”. That is the sort of reaction the Destiny Church campaign has engendered against itself, not against the bill, and not against gay people. So my question to this Government and to all those people who, I am starting to suspect, have been whipped into line—Labour MPs who are voting against the bill, but now are voting against a referendum—is what does this House have to fear by putting the question to the people? Why not ask them? We say that it is really simple: that issues like this should be put up at the same time as a general election. There should be a series of questions like: “Do you want to have same-sex marriages?”; “Do you want to have civil unions?”. They are very simple questions—yes or no—and the public is quite capable of answering them for us.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on Part 2 of this very important Civil Union Bill. Just recently we heard the Hon Paul Swain give a very sincere and thoughtful speech as a Roman Catholic supporting this bill. It is very difficult at times to balance the thoughtful speeches that are given by members on either side that relate to this bill. I think he ended up by saying in essence that he supports the civil union possibility of a loving and caring couple who wanted to go through some sort of public and legal recognition. I ask the Hon Paul Swain why one needs this formal Civil Union Bill, put up by the Labour Government, and the rights it bestows on people, when we already have common law rights in New Zealand that allow that extra freedom of individuals to be able to design the sort of framework for the relationship that they would like. Surely, that extra freedom is something that is enormously important and the whole democratic process is about working for those freedoms.

Have we not, in this case, almost got an over-reaction of the civil and human rights gained over the last 40 to 60 years in the gender battle? When one thinks back to Oscar Wilde and the absolutely extraordinary persecution that he went through in that era, one thinks of how he would be able to express himself today with considerable openness and, hopefully, little or no persecution, and also enter into a relationship that would be recognised by common law, if that were what he wanted.

Is the Labour Government not over-reacting in a historical sense and saying: “Here is a small group of New Zealanders who want to be recognised by special legislation over and above the common law, so this is what we will provide for them. They are particularly shrill in the way they have caused this to come about, so we will indeed give them this framework of civil union, which they say is different from a marriage.”

I heard the Hon Paul Swain say he could not support civil union being equivalent to marriage, yet time and time again we have asked the Minister to explain to us what the difference is, and he has failed to do so.

In terms of the Labour Government’s concerns as to the myths relating to civil union, it has put up 10, yet they do not seem to be able to stand very close scrutiny—for instance, its third one: “Doesn’t this bill affect only a tiny minority of New Zealanders?”. Time and time again we have heard the rhetoric that there are in the order of 330,000 New Zealanders in de facto relationships and a small number of same-sex couples who would be affected by this legislation. That indeed is true, but what we do not hear is, on the one hand, the number who would be likely to take advantage of this bill and, on the other hand, how many would be quite satisfied to design their own common law contract. This is the point I am making. Surely, in historical terms, this is an over-reaction. Surely, the greater freedom that we have in this country is the ability to be able to form a union under common law.

I rise to make just a few points based on the commentary we have heard in the past. If this bill goes through, the sun will still shine and the birds will still sing tomorrow. The world will not end. But this bill is a bill that this country does not need, full stop. I too would like to see tolerance. I would like to see tolerance towards those who do hold marriage sacred, who do not want a carbon-copy mockery of it handed out to people who only want social approval but none of the inherent responsibilities attendant on the Marriage Act. I also want to see respectfulness and loving relationships, but we do not need law for that.

There are a number of gay people in this Chamber and out in the community who are in longstanding relationships, and that is to be commended. That is great, but a law is not needed. The fact that those relationships survive proves the point: we do not need legislation to try to support that; it happens regardless.

This bill is nothing more than about formalising an arrangement pushed along by a social agenda that is not publicly demanded—for the simple reason, I guess, of trying to legitimise a want. It is more about scratching an itch that is in the public. There is absolutely no need for it whatsoever. It is not the job of Governments to legislate such things. It is not the job of Governments to give people a qualitative analysis on the type of relationship they have, loving or otherwise. Many gay relationships last much longer and are of a far better quality than some marriages, but that is not the issue. The Marriage Act—the act of marriage—is all about the support of the children who are a natural consequence of that relationship.

Such consequences do not normally ensue from the types of relationships that civil union is supposed to cover. In fact, if children were involved, the guardianship laws would kick in. So again, there is no need for the State to intervene. We have categories for just about everybody now—de facto, civil union perhaps, marriage, divorce, and on and on it goes. We will end up in a situation where we will legitimate 4 million types of relationships, simply because people want them and not because they actually need them. There is no necessity for this law at all. In fact, the very arguments that are put forward in favour of it are not even considered in the bill. They will be addressed down the track next year with the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, which we have yet to see in its detail.

This bill is also absolutely and utterly short-sighted. It is not the job of the Government to change such a fundamental aspect of our civil society without there being a clear mandate from the people. Given the differences of opinion in the House and the community, it seems reasonable, I think, that the people should decide. That would be the most representative thing for this Government to do. So, certainly, I will be supporting the referendum call. But the bill is also short-sighted because it does not address the questions of civil union in terms of its impact on the relationship between civil union and marriage.

For example, if this bill passes, people will be able to get civil union in New Zealand, then go overseas to a country that does not recognise civil unions, and get married to somebody else. Upon returning to New Zealand with a spouse from another country, is the person a bigamist? |A person’s civil union is recognised in this country; will we recognise that person’s marriage in another country? How will that work? I would love that question to be addressed. Another country that does not recognise a person’s civil union registered in New Zealand will be more than happy to register that person’s marriage to a different person in that country.

What does that make a person? From that other country’s point of view he or she is not a bigamist, but from this country’s point of view he or she might be, because according to the law in this country, people cannot be in a civil union and married at the same time. Where are the legal boundaries here? It makes absolutely no sense to me. It actually creates a problem that is not already there, which is simply that a person can be in a civil union with one person, and married to another person somewhere else. That, I think, needs to be addressed. I would love to hear a call from the sponsor of this bill to address exactly that concern.

I just end on this note: this bill is about legitimating wants. That is all it is. Some small segment of the population has stuck its hand up, and said: “I have a want.” It is cloaked in the language of rights, but it is not that.

I say in response to the member who has just resumed his seat that there can often be contradictions between jurisdictions in countries that have different laws. We have a situation now where same-sex couples who have a civil union in another jurisdiction come to New Zealand and do not have that relationship recognised here. Those situations are not completely restricted to this legislation.

I take a very practical view on this legislation. This is the first call I have taken in the debate on it. I do not share the almost hysterical view coming through in some of the speeches we have heard in this Chamber, and neither, I believe, do most New Zealanders. Given that I have 56,000 people in my electorate, very few have contacted me. Those who have fall into three distinct groups. The first group comprises people who have been sent along as part of a congregation, either with a form letter or to express their views to me, and I have listened to them. They deliver a view that I do not share but that I am very happy to respect their right to hold. The second group comprises those people who wish to enter into a civil contract because that is the only option available to them under New Zealand law, and they are people who are in a gay relationship.

There is a third group of people, a small number of whom have contacted me, and I understand exactly what they are talking about because their situation is the same as mine. They are the people who are in a de facto relationship and are not necessarily looking to formalise their relationship in the form of marriage. I feel, personally, that it would be wrong for me to formalise my relationship in a marriage, given that that is seen to be the cornerstone of the Church in this country. Yet currently I have no other option. I voted against the clause in the Property (Relationships) Bill that would mean that I would be statutorily tied in by this Parliament to having a formalised relationship. I voted against it, because that had not been my choice. A civil union would actually be a choice that I could make—the same as other New Zealanders.

I have been bitterly disappointed in some of the speeches I have heard in the House. I have been bitterly disappointed to hear this issue raised as being about nothing more than gay marriage, and I have said to my colleague Tim Barnett that I do not want to hear him referring to this bill exclusively in terms of gay relationships. It is not just about gay people; it is about a whole lot of New Zealanders who may like to choose to formalise their relationship in front of friends and family. I have never considered going to a lawyer and paying $5,000, as an alternative to having this Parliament recognise my right to have a type of relationship. I would say to all those people that when they take away all the fluff and bother from this issue and start thinking about what they believe in and the sort of country they want to live in, the best response they can have to the people who come to their offices and say: “Don’t vote for it.” is to give them some of United Future’s speeches and Brian Connell’s speeches and say: “Is this the sort of country you want to live in?”. The response I have usually had is “No, and you do what you believe is right.”

Like the previous speaker, I have not taken part in this debate to date, and I want to mention just a couple of matters. I am opposed to the Civil Union Bill, and I too think the issue should be put to a referendum. One could ask why the Government would not want to do that. We know that this Labour Government is the most poll-driven Government ever. So it cannot be said that it does not know what the majority of New Zealanders think on this issue. In fact, the majority of people think that this bill should not be passed. That is why there will not be a referendum.

This Labour Government sees itself as a Government that should legislate for minorities. It wants to be elected by the majority, it seeks the vote of the majority, then having got that vote, it sees its role, its only role, as legislating for minorities. I will not go through the list of legislation that has been passed under that thought process, because everybody in this Parliament and in the country knows that is what has happened over the past few years. So this legislation is not about what the people think; this is not about what the majority thinks; this is about what this particular Government thinks.

It is even more than that, because under an MMP way of governing there are not only constituencies but also interest groups. The people who are affected by this bill are an interest group that the Labour Party in particular sees as its own. So it is in the Labour Government’s interest to pass this legislation, not just for all the wonderful reasons we hear the proponents of this bill putting forward in the House, not only for the good of the country, but for their own particular votes. This is an area that the Government sees itself as having locked up for itself. Labour has pandered to this group of people, and it now has to deliver to this group of people. That is the way it is. Whether that is right or wrong depends on one’s view. I do not view it as being right. I view it as being wrong, and I am voting against this bill for that reason and a number of others.

New Zealand First believes that these sorts of issues should be put to a referendum—indeed, a binding referendum—and we have gone so far as to adopt that as policy. But because the Government knows that it would not like the result, it is not interested in that course of action. Then we could have a great big philosophical debate about whether the Government is governing in the interests of the majority for the minority, or whether it is governing in the interests of the majority for the majority, or whether it is governing in its own interests. I suggest that it is certainly not governing in the interests of the majority.

I want to speak in this debate in support of the Civil Union Bill, and, as I do so, I want to approach what I consider to be the most intelligent and powerful opposition to the bill, and that is that which comes from the Catholic Church. On Sunday the Church sent a message to a number of its parishes indicating that parishioners should look at the voting patterns of MPs. That suggested some form of electoral threat or electoral suicide, and I feared that might have been in the place of logic.

However, I looked further at what the bishops said, and they criticised a bill that allows same-sex couples to form relationships with the same legal standing as marriage. I have heard during the debate in the House a lot of reference to marriage, but no one really defines what it is. It certainly is a union that is confirmed in law—the Marriage Act—and, as we have heard, it is not meddled with. In the dictionary “marriage” is defined as a formal agreement between a man and a woman to live together according to the customs of their religion or society. Well, the customs of marriage in the Roman Catholic Church include an additional requirement—that is, an undertaking that one will have children. One assumes that if people do not complete that undertaking, they cannot get married in the Catholic Church. So that is an additional aspect of marriage in the Catholic Church.

But I am interested in the reports of the Catholic bishops’ letter and the preaching on Sunday, because, as members will have heard, 4 years ago the bishops took a stand on same-sex relationships, and in so doing they appeared to answer the cry we hear from Marc Alexander and others saying: “Where is the need?” and “Why do we need this legislation?”. In May 2000 the bishops in their national newspaper the National Catholic Reporter opened the report by stating: “New Zealand Catholic Bishops support legal registration of same-sex unions, though not as a stepping stone to legal marriage.” That position contrasts with recent statements made by Pope John Paul II condemning civic unions.

That statement and the following article seem to have set the Catholic Church in a bit of a tizz, and in August of the same year Bishop Cullinane, speaking for New Zealand Catholic Bishops, put out a 4-page explanation of the bishops’ position. It makes very difficult reading but it is probably summarised best in the final paragraph: “Our position comes down to this. We support legislation that protects the actual rights of people in homosexual relationships. We do not support legislation that makes the homosexual relationship the basis of their rights. In this respect, their relationship is different from marriage.” I do not know what that means, unless it means that if the legal relationship is based on their sexual activity—and their sexual activity is homosexual—then the bishops do not condone that. If that is what they are saying, that is a fairly candid position. Most people would see it as homophobic, but if it is a faith-based objection to homosexual activity, I can accept that.

But a civil union is not determined by the sexual activity of the partners. A civil union is available to two people who want to express publicly their commitment to one another in a long-term relationship. Whether or not they engage in sex at all is a private matter, not a matter for anybody else at all. Whether they be heterosexual or homosexual does not imply sexual activity. A civil union is a case of two people wanting to share the benefits, as defined in the dictionary, of a union according to the customs of their religion or society. If one has a religion that is opposed on a faith basis to homosexuality, then one would preclude homosexuals from marriage under the Marriage Act, but one would not preclude them from a civil union, which this bill provides.

So I think the Catholic Church has been a little inconsistent in its public utterances on this matter, but perhaps that is the way it has been reported, and perhaps the real objection is to the condition of homosexuality, it being a basic sin that the Church can never bring itself to endorse and embrace. If that is the Church’s position, let us accept that, but that does not imply that it speaks against civil unions. In fact, implicit in the Church’s view is that it endorses civil unions, but not if that is seen to be condoning homosexuality. So we have a slight difference, and that is on this question of the sexual activity of the partners.

The other aspect that the Church is seen to oppose is the vows that are taken in a civil union, although the word “vow” is not really used; it is a promise that is provided for in the second part of this bill. It is a promise between two people, made formally, which then has legal standing—as opposed to Mr Ardern’s interpretation of it—that is unchallengeable. They are in a civil union, and are therefore linked as partners in that union. That, then, is the short key to identifying the lack of discrimination that follows in all other legislation. We cannot have the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill without the Civil Union Bill.

I voted against this bill up until the Committee stage, and now I am voting in favour of it. I still stand by the reasons why I voted against it. I think it is discriminatory. I think it is politically correct in its language and in its drafting. I think many of those promoting it are using nauseatingly politically correct language. I would rather have seen a situation where gay people could marry each other in the same way as heterosexual people can, and where the only barrier to their marrying each other would be the right of the institution to say no—a church, or a celebrant, or a venue that might not wish to marry gay people, or might not wish to marry heterosexual people. But, unfortunately, they already cannot do that, and they will further be barred from doing that because of human rights legislation. There will be unintended consequences from the legislation, because of the banning of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, which we have in the human rights legislation, and that legislation, I believe, should be repealed.

So I took an all-or-nothing attitude when I voted against this bill. I did not oppose it on the spurious grounds that we have heard—that marriage should be a loving relationship between a man and a woman. There are many marriages between men and women that are anything but loving. I did not oppose the bill on the ground that it does not protect children. There are heterosexual couples who should never be anywhere near children. I have done numerous stories as a journalist on child abuse, and the ones who were beaten to death were always beaten to death when they were in the care of people in a so-called loving heterosexual relationship. I have done much research on sex offenders and paedophiles, and there is nothing in that research that shows that homosexual men can be likened to paedophiles or sex offenders. They do not prey on children—that is mostly done by heterosexual men and paedophiles. So this bill is not a threat to the fabric of society, as many are claiming.

The damage to children is horrendous if any relationship falls to pieces, and most parents, I believe, do everything they can to prevent the fall-out for children when relationships fall apart, whether those parents are gay, heterosexual, or single. Nobody is perfect. We have heard talk about the next step being gay people being allowed to adopt children. What is wrong with anyone wanting to adopt children? It is better that children are adopted by people who want one so much that they will give it a loving home.

I am personally painfully aware of the damage that can be done to children when relationships fail and fall apart. It is probably because I know about that damage that the strongest voice I have heard in this debate, the voice that has made me rethink the way I am voting, is the voice of my own children. I am not saying that they dictate what I do—Lord knows, we would all be bankrupt if we did what our children dictated—but my youngest daughter, who will be a first-time voter at the next election, took huge flak for the fact that I voted against this bill. I tried to explain to her the reasons why I was voting against it. I realised, when I went into a discussion with her, that it was not about me. I am over 50; this bill is not going to affect me. I might like to marry again or I might not. The point is that I can; I have that choice. She said to me that her friends will not have that choice. Many of her gay friends do not have that choice. They might like to get married in the future. Who knows? They know that this bill is not perfect, but it is the best they can have, and they might like to have a civil union. Without this bill they cannot have that.

So I am voting for this bill now. I am also supporting the amendment calling for a referendum so that this issue can go to the country and the country can decide before the bill receives the royal assent. But I am voting for it because I think this is essentially a young person’s issue. It is not about boring old biddies like me. We have our choices. When I sent a text message to my daughter yesterday and told her I would be voting for the bill, she sent a message back: “Yea! Well done mum. I’m so proud of you.”

I am pleased to be taking a call because I am delighted to follow Deborah Coddington. With due respect to her, I say that she has flip-flopped a bit, but she qualified her outlook on this bill right at the end when she said she would support a public referendum. That is exactly my position, and exactly the position of all my New Zealand First colleagues.

This bill causes me quite some discomfort. I cannot vote for this bill and push it through knowing that significant numbers of New Zealanders oppose it, and oppose it for very good reasons. This bill, it is alleged, undermines the social fabric of this country. I tend to support that view. Maybe I am in the same category as my colleague Dail Jones, who described himself as a conservative redneck. I would not describe myself as that, but I feel quite uncomfortable about this bill.

There has been much discussion coming from MPs about their personal experiences. Those experiences have all been very interesting but, with all due respect, they are irrelevant to this bill. Some say that this legislation will not undermine their marriages. They might well be correct. Some say it will not undermine the institution of marriage. I would challenge that view. I believe it does undermine the institution of marriage in as much as it gives another choice, a cheaper choice, that weakens the institution of marriage—and the word “weaken” is in the definition of the word “undermine”.

Let me talk about individuals. I think that even my colleague Brian Donnelly said he could not see that this bill would have any effect on his daughter who is getting married very soon. That idea does not occur to him one iota. Well, the bill might affect her. He does not know. How do I know that when I walk home one night my wife will not say: “I’m sick of this marriage. You’re always down in Wellington. I want a civil union.” How do I know she will not? [Interruption] I know that because I have known her for many years.

💬 Lianne Dalziel: Just ask her, for goodness’ sake!

The member puts her nose in the air. I can tell her that there will be New Zealanders who will walk home one night and find their marriages will be ended and their partners will want civil unions, as a result of this bill. If that is not going to be the case, why should we put the clause in here? Members know that that will occur. Why should we put the clause in otherwise?

This legislation is a significant change to the structure, the fabric, of New Zealand society. I listened very carefully to the honourable member over there, and he made some very good points. He was wrong on some occasions but he made some very good points. Yet I believe that this bill will change society, and many New Zealanders believe that.

We have been told by Government members how great New Zealanders are, how fair they are, how tolerant they are, and how understanding they are. I agree with that 100 percent. New Zealanders are very tolerant, fair, and objective. So New Zealand First says, and I say, that we should put this issue to the public. We have heard Government members saying that the public supports the bill holus-bolus. Well, let them have their opportunity. It is neither fair nor reasonable and nor does it show tolerance to say that 120 of us know better than the 2.5 million of the voting public out there. That is not fair, that is not tolerant, and that does not show understanding. This is the sort of legislation that should go to the public for a binding referendum.

I say to Government members that if the amendment in the name of my colleague the Hon Brian Donnelly is agreed to, they might find that 13 New Zealand First members vote for the bill. They might find that we are 100 percent behind the bill, if it is allowed to go to the public for a referendum.

This bill will affect marriage in the negative and it will affect people’s attitude to marriage. I am a little bit old-fashioned. I know members over there cannot tell that from where they are sitting.

💬 Darren Hughes: The member’s dress sense gives it away.

The member has woken up! If I had my way, I would put marriage on a pedestal, because it is a commitment between a man and a woman based around creating, enhancing, and developing a family, and that is something really special. But we have downgraded it bit by bit, and this legislation will downgrade it even further. I am sad that the bill is going through in the way it is.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the bill. It is incredibly important to me. I really welcomed Deborah Coddington’s comments about the response to her children’s point of view. I too have post - 21-year-old children who share their views of society as they know it in their age—views that are pretty similar to those of Deborah Coddington’s kids, as well. So I really appreciate those views, and I have shared in some of those discussions.

First of all, I want to make quite clear why I am supporting the bill. I am supporting it on a conscience vote. I have watched and listened to the debate as it has gone on, and I believe that there are some in the Opposition who are trying to play party politics with the legislation. This is a matter of conscience. It is a matter for me that has been a matter of conscience since I made my first speech on homosexual law reform at my first Labour conference in 1971. The vote at that particular time happened to be lost, but I made my first speech then on the issue. This is very personal and very real to me. So I am making this speech and casting my vote not as a member of the Labour Party, of which I am particularly proud, but as Marian Hobbs, an individual, exercising her conscience.

That is not because I am seeking promotion, as was said by Dr Nick Smith last night, who cast aspersions on all of us that we were following a particular way because we were people who wanted to curry favour. No, I support it because of my own personal conscience, not because I am pandering to one sector of the community. This bill honours people from whatever sector of the community they come, rainbow or straight, in relation to what is being offered—which was the issue raised before by Doug Woolerton.

I also comment that this is not rushed legislation. Well over a year ago as this legislation was being debated and argued through, and as the bills were being written, I went to my Wellington Central electorate, which I am extremely proud of, and in my normal newsletter to electorate members I asked for their comments on the proposed legislation. I got back an overwhelming response supporting it. I have had letters and I have had visits, and I have dealt with all of those.

I really loved the story Mark Peck told yesterday about having a woman in his office who strongly believed that homosexuality was wrong. I have also had people in my office who strongly believe that homosexuality is wrong and that this legislation will affect the faith of the country. Mark Peck told the woman that the bill had a conscience vote and asked her whether, if she were in his place, she would vote according to what he wanted. But she said, “No way! I’ll vote my way.” Well, that is what I am doing; I am voting my way.

However, I have listened and, as I said, I know that my electorate supports my point of view. My emails, which are absolutely taking off at the moment, are running a hundred to one in favour of the legislation. My emails are just taking off. I know I have been out of the country for a week, but I am still desperately clearing through them. They are a hundred to one in favour of this legislation.

Why do I support civil union? I support civil union because it gives choice to New Zealanders. When it comes to the notion of civil union and State recognition of a relationship, I rather enjoy the notion of the European practice, which is that one signs and then it is acknowledged that one has joined in a relationship as regards the State. There is an optional church ceremony, and the blending of the two is kept far apart. I really like the notion of separation of church and State.

That is why I took some exception to the comments of Judy Turner last night when she said that marriage was about breeding units, and she therefore opposed the recognition by the State of non-breeding units. Frankly, I found that fairly offensive, and I also found it a very limiting view of a relationship.

I was brought up in the Catholic church. My mother was a nun and my father was a Jesuit seminarian. I come from a strong Catholic family. I have a sister who was a nun and a brother who was a seminarian so, gee, I have had it in my head all my life. But it was that limiting view, which dictated that marriage was about breeding units, that said to me as a young married that I could not use contraceptives within my marriage. I was detailed to be “a breeding unit” and I was not therefore able to control how I managed the children coming into my family. I now have a very different view of relationships, and I strongly support this bill.

One of the problems with the Civil Union Bill is that the solution the Government has come up with creates two types of relationships—two types, in my view, of marriage. That will create quite unintentional consequences, particularly in international situations. Whilst within New Zealand we have a provision in the Civil Union Bill that states that one cannot be both married and in a civil union, situations can readily arise on the international scene where that is exactly what will happen. I give the example of a man and a woman who enter into a civil union in New Zealand and then travel overseas to a jurisdiction that does not recognise civil unions—perhaps to the United States of America. As far the United States is concerned, they are single people. They then split up, and the man gets married in the United States and then returns with his new wife to New Zealand.

What is the situation in New Zealand? The situation is that the man has a civil union with one partner in New Zealand and, because New Zealand recognises all marriages overseas and people do not have to go through any registration process for it, New Zealand also recognises the United States marriage. Therefore, a person can be in a civil union relationship and in a marriage relationship, and both are recognised as valid within New Zealand. What sort of situation will we have then?

💬 Hon David Benson-Pope: Bigamy.

No, it is not bigamy, as the Minister in the chair, David Benson-Pope, seems to suggest, because that person has married, legitimately, in a different jurisdiction. The fact that the person has returned to New Zealand would not suddenly make the second relationship bigamous, given that it was not bigamous at the time it was entered into. So we will have that sort of problem.

The recognition of overseas relationships in the bill, in clause 34, “Regulations”, will also create problems. In all but two countries, the registration process is a lesser process than the one we are looking at. There is simply a registration process, without the ceremonial aspects and without the extent of rights that the Government intends to provide for people who have a civil union, so that when people who enter into a civil union overseas come to New Zealand they will automatically gain substantially more rights in New Zealand than they had in the overseas jurisdiction in which they entered into the union. That will create complications in terms of overseas property issues. Whereas overseas those people may not have certain rights to property that a married couple might have, when they come to New Zealand they will have those rights. They will have rights in respect of property overseas that stem from the recognition of their relationship within New Zealand, which they would not have if they tried to enforce those rights overseas.

That in itself will also create huge complications. It has been created because this Government has insisted on making, at the very best, two parallel types of relationship, instead of facing the issue directly and simply trying to get through the House amendments to the Marriage Act to provide for same-sex relationships. Whenever we try to get parallel forms that are almost identical, we will inevitably get those complications.

If this is not same-sex marriage, then my colleague Larry Baldock’s amendment ought to be adopted by the Committee. That amendment makes it very clear that a couple cannot convert their civil union into marriage unless it consists of a man and a woman. If this Government and the supporters of this bill are serious about preserving marriage for a man and a woman, then here is their opportunity to put that on the line. Here is the opportunity to make the clear declaration that marriage will not be changed to make it available for people of the same sex. I will be very interested to see how people vote on that issue. This is an amendment for honesty. This amendment tests the honesty of the opponents who say that, effectively, marriage will be preserved for a man and a woman only. Let us see whether they live up to that expectation.

The lesson we learn from this procedure is that we need to hear the concerns of minority groups and address their needs, not their wants. The needs of the homosexual community, in particular, have been akin to next-of-kin criteria. Their wants are acceptance by society that homosexual relationships be provided with exactly the same benefits as heterosexual relationships. I do not agree that that is the case. The only reason the Government and society get involved in endorsing marriage is the importance of protecting and nurturing the circumstances in which the next generation will be raised. Homosexual relationships do not do that.

I move, That the question be now put.

I appreciate being able to take a call on Part 2. I say to the Committee that this bill should be called the “We Don’t Care What You Think Because We Will Do What We Want and Push Through Our Liberal Leftie Agenda Bill”, because that is what this Government is doing. We asked the members on the opposite side of the Chamber, and the Green members, why they did not support a referendum; why, if they are really that confident that this bill will pass, they would not support the referendum that New Zealand First has proposed.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: They don’t like democracy.

Labour does not like democracy. Labour is a party for the minority. It is not a party for the people. That is what New Zealand First is saying. Labour should stop being a party of the minority and start being a party of the people. All members of Parliament would like to think they are politicians for the people. Well, this Government is not showing that. Ministers and members of Parliament who have stood up in the last couple of days to speak on this bill have gone about slagging the US Government and the people in 11 different states of the United States who have voted against civil union and gay marriage. Members have said that those people basically are intolerant and are bigots because they do not agree with their view. That is what this Government is saying. This is a poll-driven Government—we all know that. It has done the numbers.

R Doug Woolerton: You are right.

The member says I am right. Everybody knows that this is a poll-driven Government, and it has done the numbers. The Government knows that it would lose this.

When I spoke to the Committee on Part 1, I brought up the scenario of the state of Oregon, which is probably more like us as a country. It is a more liberal state. It is on the west coast—it is close to Hollywood and California—and it is not a Bible Belt state, but even Oregon voted against this issue. We saw the TV3 poll last week. As the voting comes to the crunch, people are starting to think about the whole issue and are asking themselves how this will affect our nation, not in 10, 20, or 30 years, but in 50 or 100 years. They are asking what is best for this nation. At the end of the day, the New Zealand voter will go into a polling booth and say that this will not be good for our nation in the future. That is what the Labour Government, the Green Party and the Minister in the chair, David Benson-Pope, are afraid of. Those “Fui” posters are really true: they say that civil unions are not gay marriage—“Yeah Right”. We know that this is gay marriage. This bill is basically taken out of the Marriage Act. It is the same thing. People are just fooling themselves if they think this is not gay marriage.

The reason I want to talk about a referendum and why we should let the people decide on this one is that many people out there have a lot of concerns. Those people would like to have their say. David and Christine Sloane wrote to me and said: “Dear Mr McNair, we are very concerned about the current Civil Union Bill and the relationship bill before Parliament, and we thank you for your continued opposition to these bills. We oppose these bills in their entirety, and we hope you will receive support and encouragement from the views of the many thousands of people who made submissions that were strongly against the introduction of these bills. We believe that marriage needs to be protected and promoted in law, because it offers unique benefits to children and society. These bills effectively say that marriage has no special value to New Zealand. It is a well-known fact that good marriage relationships are instrumental in developing stable family life for children to grow up in, as well as being the foundation for communities and society to build upon. We believe the majority of New Zealanders do not want the Civil Union Bill or the relationships bill introduced and we urge you to use any influence you have in giving support, with the aim of defeating these bills. New Zealanders from all walks of life are proud of their history, their culture, their values, and the way we all contribute to society. We urge you not to be part of any process that devalues or waters down any of the foundations or principles we value. Please continue to vote against the introduction of the Civil Union Bill and the relationships bill.”

I move, That the question be now put.

Mr Chairperson, just before you start putting the questions to the Committee, and further to the conversations that have been held with whips from the other parties in the Chamber, I seek leave for voting to be suspended between the hours of 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to the headings of Part 2 and subpart 1 be agreed to.

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I seek leave to correct the previous vote. I have failed to cast a vote for Tariana Turia. She has confirmed with me that she wanted to vote against that previous amendment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. It is altered accordingly. On that particular vote, the Noes are now 74.

Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to the heading of clause 8A be agreed to.

I seek the leave of the Committee to take the remaining votes on Richard Worth’s Supplementary Order Paper 314 as one single personal vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to omit clause 14 be agreed to.

The amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to omit clauses 17 and 18 have been ruled out of order because they are inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 313 in the name of Larry Baldock to clause 18 be agreed to.

The amendments to clauses 19 and 20, the amendment to the heading of clause 21, and the amendments to subclauses (1) and (4) of clause 21 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth have been ruled out of order as they are inconsistent with previous decisions of the Committee.

The amendments to subclauses (1) to (3) of clause 22 to omit and substitute text, the amendment to the heading before clause 23, and the amendments to subclauses (2) and (3) of clause 23 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth are out of order as they are inconsistent with previous decisions of the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to clause 23 be agreed to:

to omit subclause (1).

The amendment in the name of Richard Worth to insert new clause 24B set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 is out of order because it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to omit subpart 2 of Part 2 be agreed to.

The amendments to the heading and to subclause (1) of clause 29 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth are out of order because they are inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to clause 29 be agreed to:

to omit subclause (2).

The next amendment is to omit words from subclause (3) of clause 29 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth. It is out of order as it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to clause 29 be agreed to:

to omit subclause (4).

We now come to an amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to omit and substitute words in clause 31. The amendment is out of order because it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to clause 34 be agreed to:

The amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to clause 34(1)(a) and clause 34(1)(c) are out of order as they are inconsistent with previous decisions of the Committee.

The question was put that the following amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 314 in the name of Richard Worth to clause 34 be agreed to:

to omit subclause (2).

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Before you declare the vote, an interesting point has been drawn to my attention that I think it requires a ruling from you. We are doing a personal vote under Standing Order 146, which sets out the procedure. It states: “(1)(d) all members present within the Chamber or the lobbies when the doors are locked must vote or record their abstentions:”. This goes back to a similar Standing Order that has existed in the House for over a hundred years, which is that members cannot just sit in their seats; they must vote.

It has been drawn to my attention that some members continue to sit in their seats in the Chamber, in the belief they can vote by proxy. On a personal vote, I do not believe that a member can do that. I understand that four members have been put down as a proxy vote on this vote, and I think their votes must be recorded in person. As they failed to do that, then under those Standing Orders their votes get recorded in the opposite lobby. I believe that is what should happen in this case. That is what the old rule was. If a member went into the wrong lobby, his or her vote got recorded in the opposite lobby as an encouragement not to do that again.

I understand there are four members—there may be more—who cast proxy votes in this vote, when they were present in the Chamber. Those votes certainly should be declared invalid and perhaps recorded in the opposite lobby.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that issue.

Perhaps I could speak to the point of order. It is an interesting issue.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): It is an interesting issue, and the member is absolutely right. I was about to ask the member what he suggests we should do about it.

Although, obviously, it is in your province to make a judgment on this matter, Mr Chairman, now that it has been raised, surely the thing of most import to the Committee is that the intent of members is clear and that their vote is appropriately recorded. If a whip is holding a proxy for a member, then the member’s intent is clear. It seems to me it would be quite inappropriate if the end result were that the member’s vote either was recorded opposite to his or her clear intent or was not counted at all, when he or she had properly indicated his or her intention to the whip. Although Mr Prebble has raised an interesting point, I think good sense and natural justice would suggest that—even if from this point forward you determine that a different practice should be followed—it would be a gross injustice to overturn the obvious intention of a member in casting his or her vote.

I seek clarification on the point of order. Certainly, in the votes I have been involved with in the Ayes lobby, proxies for people who were either in the queue to vote or in the Chamber were not recorded as proxy votes. If, indeed, in some cases they were, then when the member arrived at the point of casting the personal vote, the vote was amended on the sheet to record that it was not a proxy vote. In other words, if the member was present in either the lobby or the Chamber, that was certainly taken into account in the way the votes were tallied in the Ayes lobby. In fact, earlier in the day when voting was taking place with considerably more members in the Chamber—if I am able to say that—we took some care to make sure that when party whips or representatives of the whips cast those votes and the teller saw those members in the queue, then their vote was not recorded as a proxy, and we waited for them to reach the teller. That was my understanding as to how those votes were to be recorded, in accordance with the advice that has been given by the Hon Richard Prebble.

I think there is quite a simple solution to this. It seems to me that the House recognises votes that are either cast in person or by proxy. I think that the Standing Order refers to people sitting in this Chamber and not declaring themselves for, against, or as an abstention. I believe that the House does recognise a proxy vote as being the same as the member having voted.

I can give my own experience. A short while ago I was in the Chamber. Gordon Copeland knew I was here, and he would not accept the fact that I had not come up to the queue. I was asked to go and cross my name off the list, because Gordon Copeland knew I was here. That is what I did, even though my whip held a proxy for me. So at least as far as this side of the voting is concerned the rule as it is in the Standing Orders has been carried out, because we have all understood that to be the rule. If perhaps the other side has not understood that to be the rule, well, four votes off will make no difference on this occasion. However, the lesson will be well and truly learnt.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I thank members for their assistance. The point was properly raised. If that had been happening, it is against the Standing Orders. There is no doubt about that. The votes have been declared—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. That is not right. We made it quite clear. You were about to say something, and we knew the rule. Mr Prebble raised a point of order, before you declared the vote. It was very, very clear.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I am dealing with other votes. I am not sure which ones Mr Prebble is referring to. This vote has not been declared. Because of that, I intend to ask the tellers to come back and look at their lists for this particular vote and ask whether there are any other members present who wish to have their votes counted. It has been my understanding that up till now the proper course has been followed, and I trust the whips completely. But in respect of this vote—

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If you are going to do that, then I think it might be an appropriate course to do the vote again; to just allow members to go into the lobbies, and, if there are members here who have not voted—I understand there are four—to allow them to go and cast their votes correctly.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): We can do that, and we will proceed along those lines. We will go back to redo the vote.

Adams (P)

English (P)

Peters J (P)

Tisch

Alexander (P)

Franks (P)

Peters W (P)

Turner (P)

Baldock (P)

Gudgeon (P)

Power

Wang (P)

Brash (P)

Heatley (P)

Prebble

Williamson (P)

Brown (P)

Hutchison (P)

Roy (P)

Woolerton (P)

Carter D (P)

Jones

Ryall (P)

Worth (P)

Carter J (P)

Key (P)

Scott (P)

Catchpole (P)

Mapp (P)

Shirley (P)

Coddington

McNair (P)

Smith L (P)

Collins (P)

Newman (P)

Smith M (P)

Copeland

Ogilvy (P)

Smith N (P)

Dunne (P)

Paraone (P)

Stewart

Teller:

Eckhoff (P)

Perry (P)

te Heuheu (P)

Connell

Anderton (P)

Duynhoven (P)

Laban (P)

Simich (P)

Ardern (P)

Dyson (P)

Locke (P)

Sowry (P)

Barker (P)

Ewen-Street

Mackey J

Sutton (P)

Barnett (P)

Fairbrother (P)

Mackey M (P)

Swain (P)

Benson-Pope

Field (P)

Maharey

Tamihere (P)

Beyer (P)

Fitzsimons (P)

Mahuta (P)

Tanczos (P)

Bradford (P)

Gallagher (P)

Mallard (P)

Tizard (P)

Brownlee (P)

Goff (P)

Mark (P)

Turei (P)

Burton

Gosche (P)

McCully (P)

Turia (P)

Carter C (P)

Goudie (P)

O'Connor (P)

Ward (P)

Chadwick (P)

Hartley (P)

Okeroa (P)

Wilson (P)

Choudhary (P)

Hawkins (P)

Parker (P)

Wong (P)

Clark (P)

Hereora (P)

Peck (P)

Yates (P)

Cosgrove (P)

Hide (P)

Pettis

Cullen (P)

Hobbs (P)

Pillay (P)

Cunliffe (P)

Hodgson (P)

Rich (P)

Dalziel (P)

Horomia (P)

Ririnui

Donald (P)

Hunt (P)

Robertson (P)

Donnelly (P)

Kedgley (P)

Robson (P)

Teller:

Duncan (P)

King (P)

Samuels (P)

Hughes

I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We now have a further dilemma, in that there are previous votes that have been recorded and apparently acknowledged incorrectly. I have been looking at the Standing Orders to see what the result of that is, and I find there are a number of alternatives, some of which are rather wearying. One is in Standing Order 153, “Errors and mistakes”, states: “(1) In the case of confusion or error concerning the result of a vote, the House, unless any error can be otherwise corrected, proceeds to a second vote.” We have had a number of votes where members’ votes have been recorded by proxy when they were present.

The next dilemma is this: Speaker’s ruling 64/2 states: “No convention or Standing Order requires a member (present within the Chamber or lobbies) who fails to vote should cast the vote one way or the other. The Standing Order allowing the Speaker to correct the voting list does not apply in this sort of situation.” Speaker’s ruling 63/5 states: “The voting lists as given to the Speaker by the tellers are absolute evidence of the members who have voted.” It would appear to me that, as a minimum, those members who allowed their names to be recorded as having voted and did so by proxy should seek leave for the voting record to be amended. That would appear to me to be the minimum. The other possibility is that if there are such votes, then under the Standing Orders those votes ought to be conducted again.

I think perhaps the pertinent point is that where the situation was clear, as it was with the vote we have just retaken, then the appropriate action was taken. I am not aware of any other vote that is affected similarly. For my part, as one of the parties affected by that last vote—I had just arrived in the Chamber, so it was in fact the first vote that had taken place while I was present—I am certainly not aware of any other specific case affected. However, the matter has clearly been drawn to the attention of members. Having had that reminder, I am sure it will assist them to vote in an appropriate manner in future votes.

I thank members for that, and particularly Mr Prebble for raising the matter. Members will be in no doubt now, if they were before—and I am not saying they were; but if they were—that if they are present in the Chamber or the lobbies, they must vote. They absolutely must vote.

The results of the votes have been declared and if members had points to raise, they should have raised them before that. At this point, all votes have been declared and accepted. I have no evidence that any of those votes contravenes any of our procedures. But, in respect of the last vote and the revote on it, I believe that was correctly done.