Senator BROWN(6.36 p.m.) —The minister might just clarify something for me. She said that there is no concern about the Sex Discrimination Act. I thought the changes the government was making were, on the face of it, infringing the Sex Discrimination Act—that is, that de facto couples are going to be treated differently from married people when they put an application before the government to come into this country—and that that is why you had to do something about it.

Senator Vanstone —Yes, the government treats married and cohabiting couples differently.

Senator BROWN —That is where I take umbrage at the legislation. No doubt the statistics can fly, but if you want to make an analysis of married couples under the headings of couples with one, two, three, four, five children or no children, their age groups or where they got married, you will find there are different statistics as to how long those marriages last.

The government's notes say that it wants to make it harder for de facto couples to come to this country because their rate of staying together is not as good as it is for people who have a marriage certificate under their arm. But that is discriminatory. The minister should be able to say why it is that she has not broken down into subgroups the biggest group in this category coming into the country, married people, to see which sorts of marriages will last the best and apply the two-year test to the sorts of marriages which do not last as well as others.

The point of the Sex Discrimination Act was to stop this sort of thing happening. The point of this amendment is to allow the government to get around an act which has been on our statutes for 13 years to prevent discrimination. As we all know, once we allow a bit to be chipped away, the government will be back to have more chipped away further down the line. So, as far as I am concerned, I oppose this move by the government. I think it is fraught with difficulties.