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senate vote 2016-03-17#3
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2017-09-28 13:42:55
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Title
Bills — Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2013; Second Reading- Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2013 - Second Reading - Speed things along
Description
<p class="speaker">Janet Rice</p><p>I am so proud to be standing here today to debate the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2013, and proud to be a member of a loving same-sex couple who was legally married in Australia. Voting for marriage equality is well overdue. We need to achieve a vote on marriage equality to achieve equality and to stop discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.</p><p>My marriage to Penny is so central to my life. I cannot imagine life without her, and I am so proud of being a legally married same-sex couple in Australia. We became that in 2003, 13 years ago, when Penny transitioned to Penny and became female, and suddenly our life changed. Suddenly we went from being a normal heterosexual couple to a same-sex couple. Then, in 2004, the change to the Marriage Act, introduced by John Howard, meant that our marriage was no longer a legal marriage in Australia—that is, if Penny's recognition as a female was changed on her birth certificate.</p>- The majority voted against a [motion](http://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2016-03-17.16.1) to stop debate and vote on the question immediately. In parliamentary jargon, they voted against a motion *that the question now be put*.
- Because the motion failed, debate will continue.
<p>In 2004, with the change to the Marriage Act, we were placed in the position that, if we wanted to stay married, Penny would not be able to change her gender on her birth certificate. So we entered this netherworld of discrimination. Penny absolutely wanted to change her gender on her birth certificate but we absolutely did not want to get divorced. So we have chosen to stay married and in this netherworld—a world which has been there for far too long. We need to be acting on this. We have been debating marriage equality in this place and in the other place for far too long. Since 2004, when the Marriage Act was changed, the debate has continued.</p><p>Penny and I have been lucky. We have been very lucky. Everybody should have the opportunity to marry the person that they love, but, right now, same-sex couples in Australia do not have that opportunity. I spent some time on the weekend at the ChillOut Festival in Daylesford, surrounded by friends, surrounded by lots of people celebrating their life as LGBTIQ people. There was my friend Sean, who is engaged to his partner and who would dearly, dearly like to be married. He cannot be married. There was Rachel, the person I travelled in the car with; similarly, she is in a same-sex relationship with her partner. I do not know whether Rachel wants to get married, but she wants to have that choice. There were the two women that I danced with who were dressed as brides. They said it was lovely to be there in this celebration at ChillOut, to be able to be celebrating. They said it was almost like a wedding—almost. But there is the sadness that they are not able get married.</p><p>We have fallen behind the rest of the world. Twenty-one other countries now have marriage equality. Australia is the only developed English-speaking country where loving couples are discriminated against simply because of their gender. Not only has the time for marriage equality come in Australia, but it is so long overdue. For the couples who are being denied the right to marry, it breaks my heart. Now is the time. It falls to us. We have the opportunity to change that. We have the opportunity to change the law. We have the opportunity to vote and change the law today. It was in 2004, after the change to the Marriage Act, that the first bill to legalise equal marriage was introduced into the parliament by the Greens' first member of the House of Representatives, Michael Organ. In 2007 former Senator Kerry Nettle introduced a bill; in 2008 Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett introduced a bill, and Sarah Hanson-Young's bill, the bill that we are debating today, was introduced in 2009.</p><p>This is going to continue until we vote to legalise same-sex marriage, because this is the last state sanctioned discrimination against same-sex attracted and transgendered people, and it is the most important state sanctioned discrimination that still exists. Now in 2016, after 17 bills in the parliament—17 bills since 2004—and after countless hours of debate we can take a crucial step on the path to equal love right now. We are now debating Sarah Hanson-Young's bill, but we have had enough talk. Let's bring on the vote. It is long past time. If we ring the bells now we can be hearing wedding bells in no time. We do not need extra time for debate. The Labor Party was confident that the numbers were there earlier this week, so let's get this long overdue reform through the Senate and get it through today. We need a vote this morning. Labor, it seems, want to vote to keep on talking. We want to vote to change the law.</p><p>If Labor's position on same-sex marriage were motivated by a genuine desire to win the vote, not to sabotage Senate voting reform, then there is no reason why we cannot just vote on the bill this morning, without delay. We are ready to vote. We are ready to vote 'yes'. But we are not going to be bullied on unrelated pieces of legislation. We have got time this morning to vote and we can do it, so I am calling on Labor. Labor are saying that they are committed to equal marriage. Labor are saying they want to have a vote on equal marriage, so I am calling on Labor to allow it. Labor, we can do it this morning. There are people's lives that are dependent on this. There is Penny's and my life, there are other people in this parliament's lives, there are the lives of the people that I have talked about this morning.</p><p>I am calling on Labor to support this bill going to a vote this morning. If Labor do not support this, maybe it is because they are not confident of getting the outcome, and they are not confident in their numbers. If Labor do not support bringing on a vote this morning then maybe it is just a cynical exploitation of an issue that means so much to so many. And if Labor does not allow a vote today then they are going to be responsible for missing an historic opportunity to vote on this issue. We are ready to bring on a vote today, and we can guarantee with a vote today that every one of our MPs will vote unanimously for marriage equality, because we have done that—every vote, every MP, every time. Every time there has been opportunity to vote on marriage equality the Greens have done it—17 bills in this parliament. We will continue to vote for marriage equality because it is so important for ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people.</p><p>We want to see marriage equality. We need to see marriage equality. Now is the time. We can vote on this today, and I call on all people in this place today to be voting for marriage equality, to be voting for love, to be voting for those wedding bells to be ringing as soon as possible.</p> <p class="speaker">Ian Macdonald</p><p>In my long time in this chamber I have heard a number of speeches that were dripping with hypocrisy and insincerity, but the one I heard this morning from the Leader of the Opposition on a formal motion—a procedural motion relating to the same subject—just about took the cake. I want to explain to those who might be listening to the debate what the coalition's position is. It starts from the premise that, if you are a member of the Liberal and National parties, you go to an election and make a promise, and you make the promise intending that promise to be kept. This subject of same-sex marriage is one that I know raises a lot of emotions on both sides of the debate, and I understand the emotion that is engendered on both sides of the debate.</p><p>But this is an issue that has been around for some time and the coalition have a policy on it. We went to the last election saying that the definition of marriage would stay the same as it is in the Marriage Act for this term of parliament, and that is the commitment we took to the Australian people. I remember that, at the time, the coalition thought long and hard about that policy. We were petitioned by the church groups, if I can loosely label them as that. They had very, very strong views on it and they made a point which resonated with the coalition as a whole. We decided to go to the last election with this commitment to retain the definition of marriage as it is in the Marriage Act.</p><p>I know Labor senators find it hard to believe that a political party would make a promise, intending to keep it, and then actually keep it. I know that is foreign to the Australian Labor Party. We all remember the promise by the Labor Party: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Having been elected on that promise, what was the first thing that an Australian Labor government did when it took the reins? It introduced a carbon tax—the direct opposite of what they had promised before the election. That is not a one-off.</p><p>In the last few days, I have raised a number of times the Keating Labor Party's l-a-w law tax reductions. Remember that? Some senators might have been around then, as I was. Thinking they were going to lose the next election, Mr Keating and the Labor Party actually legislated for tax cuts before the election. It was passed and Mr Keating said: 'It's l-a-w law. These tax cuts will happen. They have been legislated.' Low and behold, unexpectedly, Mr Keating and the Labor Party won that election. What was the first thing that they did, the first legislative program that they indulged in on being returned to government? It was to renege, to cancel, to abolish that bill giving what was then called the l-a-w law tax cuts.</p><p>The Labor Party have form when it comes to making promises and then doing the exact opposite when they come to power. Take the current issue of electoral reform. Two years ago, I sat on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and we looked at the issue of the rort—the dishonesty of the Senate voting system at the time. That committee travelled all around Australia. It took evidence from everybody who wanted to have a say and it took evidence from some very clever academic people, people who understand the voting system.</p><p>The committee deliberated long and hard and it came to a unanimous conclusion. Firstly, I will just explain that the committee comprised Liberal, National, Labor, Greens, Xenophon and anyone else who wanted to go along. I was not a formal member of that committee but, under the rules we have in the Senate, any senator can become a participating member, with all the powers and privileges of the committee. I put myself onto that committee because I was interested in the issues. As a senator who has been around for a while and as a Queenslander, I wanted to make sure that when the people of Queensland cast a vote for the Senate, they were actually making the choice themselves, not putting 1 in a box and then letting the various political parties to determine where the preferences go.</p><p>I well recall at the time Mr Katter, the member for Kennedy—who had been a member of the National Party but had left the National Party and become an Independent—telling people that he was still our way inclined, that he did not like some of the things that were happening so he had left the party to became an Independent. But he indicated to people, 'If you vote for me, I'll be okay and my preferences will go to my old party'—by then the Liberal National Party of Queensland. We then looked at the Katter Party voting ticket that he had registered and, low and behold, who got the preferences?</p> <p class="speaker">John Williams</p><p>Labor.</p> <p class="speaker">Ian Macdonald</p><p>Yes, Labor got the preferences. In good faith, people said: 'We'll vote for Mr Katter for old time's sake. He's not very effective but at least we know him. He's a nice enough guy. We'll vote for him and we'll vote for him in the Senate because our preferences will flow on to the LNP'—because that is what he had indicated to them. But when you looked at his card which is registered and locked up in the AEC vaults in Brisbane, you found that the preferenced the Labor Party before he preferenced the coalition.</p><p>Now, we do not want that sort of thing to happen, not because we did not get the vote—and he did not get many anyhow, so it did not have a great impact—but people should be given the chance to make their own decisions on where their preferences go. If people want to vote for Mr Katter's party in the Senate, fine, that is great. But if they want to give a No. 2 preference to the Labor Party, that is fine; they can put a 2 next to Labor.</p><p>If they want to give their preferences to the LNP then are able to do it themselves, making a conscience vote when they go to fill in their ballot paper, and it will not be very hard anymore when this legislation comes in. People will be able to vote 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 above the line, if they are the political parties they want, or they will be able to vote 1 to 12 below the line. It is simple, anyone will be able to do it. I have always voted below the line. But I can tell you that when you get up to 103, you start to wonder whether you have left out a number or not.</p><p>The committee that looked at this voting came to the conclusion that the voting system in the Senate, for various reasons, one of which I have mentioned, had to be changed. Who voted for that?</p><p>It was a unanimous decision of senators from all parties; that is, senators from the Liberal Party, senators from the National Party, senators from the ALP, senators from the Greens and Senator Xenophon. I emphasise: senators and members from the Labor Party were there. I remember that Senator Tillem was there, and I remember that the respected Labor Senator John Faulkner was there and—as you would imagine—took a leading part in the debate. He signed off on changes to the Senate electoral voting system, as did Mr Gary Gray. Whatever you think about Mr Gary Gray, he is recognised as an honest, fair and sensible leader of the Labor Party. He signed off on it, because he understood, as did everyone on the committee, that the system that was in place was being rorted. I find it hard to understand how the Labor Party continue this process of saying one thing—</p> <p class="speaker">Doug Cameron</p><p>Mr Acting Deputy President, on a point of order: we are debating the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2013. I have been extremely patient. I have waited 10 minutes. Halfway through Senator Macdonald's contribution to this bill, I do not think he has mentioned the bill. His attention should be drawn to the issue before the Senate.</p> <p class="speaker">Zed Seselja</p><p>Thank you, Senator Cameron. I will rule on that. Senator Macdonald did mention it earlier. He is straying into other areas—which is not uncommon, might I say, in these debates. I would simply remind Senator Macdonald that we are debating the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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