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PM

Wednesday 5 December 2007

Australian Capital Territory: Attorney-General renews push for same sex legal equality

MARK COLVIN: New Federal Government, new push for equality for same sex couples. Now that Kevin Rudd and his team are ensconced on Capital Hill, the ACT Government has renewed its push for the recognition of same sex unions. 

 

Last year, the ACT became the first Australian State or Territory to give full legal recognition to same sex couples, but the Coalition government overturned the legislation. 

 

The new federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, will meet his ACT counterpart on Friday, to discuss the renewed proposal. 

 

Lindy Kerin reports. 

 

LINDY KERIN: Across Australia, a marriage is only legally recognised when it's between a man and woman, but gay rights advocates like Peter Furness, who's the national convenor of the group Australian Marriage Equality, have been lobbying for many years to change that. 

 

PETER FURNESS: Same sex couples want to marry, or want to get married, for the same reason that opposite sex couples want to get married. It's about love, it's about commitment, it's about family, but also for us it's about equality under the law. 

 

LINDY KERIN: The ACT's Attorney-General, Simon Corbell, plans to re-introduce a Civil Partnerships Bill, which would grant legal recognition to same-sex unions. He'll push the case at a meeting with the new federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, on Friday. 

 

SIMON CORBELL: I think that's an important courtesy to extend to the Federal Government, given there has been a change of government, and the opportunity now to progress an important piece of law reform for people in the ACT. 

 

The ACT became the first Australian jurisdiction to recognise same sex civil unions in May last year, but the then federal government use its powers to disallow the Act. 

 

The ACT is now seeking approval of amended legislation. 

 

SIMON CORBELL: It has amendments in it which seek to address the concerns raised by the previous government, around language and ensuring that we do not liken these relationships to marriage, and that bill is currently sitting on the table, and now with a new federal government in power, the opportunity is there to discuss this matter and hopefully progress it.  

 

LINDY KERIN: It remains to be seen whether Labor will back the ACT proposal. 

 

Labor opposes civil marriage for same-sex couples, but it supports giving couples the same legal rights as de facto heterosexual couples. 

 

Robert McClelland says the new government will move quickly to remove laws discriminating against gay and lesbian people, and that 58 laws have already been identified. 

 

ROBERT MCCLELLAND: The Labor Party, in opposition, supported, in Federal Parliament, legislation defining marriage as being between a male and a female, in the traditional sense, however, clearly, we intend to sit down with State and Territory Governments to work through, or hopefully, a national, a nationally consistent method of registration that the States and Territories may adopt. We think that would be desirable. 

 

LINDY KERIN: Rodney Croome from the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group was instrumental in setting up the Tasmanian Relationship Registry more than three years ago. It's run by the Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and gives couples the same rights as married couples under state law. 

 

RODNEY CROOME: That's been very important for confirming and certifying the practical day-to-day rights of these couples, and I think it's also been important, symbolically, for allowing the Government and, more broadly, society in general to say that these relationships matter, that they're worthwhile, that they're equal, legally. 

 

LINDY KERIN: But Rodney Croome says it shouldn't be seen as an alternative to marriage. 

 

RODNEY CROOME: I think it's a mistake for us to see civil union schemes, or relationship registries at a state level, as some kind of substitute for equality in marriage, for same sex couples. The relationship registries that we have in Tasmania, and which are being developed elsewhere, serve a very important purpose in themselves. They allow unmarried couples, couples who don't wish to marry, or who can't marry, to formalise their unions.  

 

But at the same time, we should also in this country, allow same sex couples, if they wish, the opportunity to marry under federal law. We should have both. We should have relationship registries and equal marriage.  

 

MARK COLVIN: Rodney Croome from the Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group ending Lindy Kerin's report.