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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (13 March) . . Page.. 1060 ..
MR STANHOPE
(continuing):The example I gave before to which Mr Stefaniak responded does highlight the potential confusion, that if you include that indicator of whether they are legally married you do create this confusion. As I said, A and B could be a longstanding couple, but B could still be legally married to C, which would not be unusual. It is almost par for the course in this day and age. It is not my circumstance, of course, but not at all unusual for people who are married to enter into other domestic relationships and not get divorced. That is just a fact of life; it is just a reality.
As Ms Dundas said, and said quite well, we are dealing here with realities. We are dealing with the realities around domestic relationships and partnerships that go to make up our society and we are responding to the realities. This sort of amendment just confuses those and pretends that what is real is not real or, if it is real, it would be nice to pretend from time to time that it is not. But we are past that. We just need to face up to the decisions that people make for themselves and do so in the context of relationships that they have.
MRS BURKE
(4.45): I will finish on that note and thank the Chief Minister and Attorney-General for his most eloquent response to my request to have certain words inserted into the definitions. I fully understand Ms Dundas' explanation and, as the Chief Minister explained to me yesterday, the definition from the Macquarie Dictionary quite clearly is in there.Far from clouding the issue, Ms Dundas, I just believed that I was broadening the scope of reality. Marriage happens to be a reality, one that we cannot ignore. I just thought I would be broadening it and not confusing the issue. I still do not believe from my advice that I would be clouding the issue. Given that you have just said, Attorney-General, that a domestic partnership does include people who are married, what is the harm in having it in there?
For the very reason that you gave, it would not cloud the issue. When people looked at the list of definitions, they would not feel marginalised or discriminated against in the other way, and aren't we about discrimination? We need to be very careful in this place that we do not have a lopsided situation with the discrimination comments here. I have certainly had people make representations to me that are accepting, and I am certainly accepting, of the definitions here. I think that it is right and reasonable in this day and age that people have that choice and we need to make sure that as a point of law things are right and correct. I would, however, urge this house to consider this amendment. For the sake of sensibility, we must make sure that we do not marginalise married people as part of the reality.
MR STANHOPE
(Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Community Affairs and Minister for the Environment) (4.47): I wish to respond to that point. I do not want to prolong the debate and I will not engage in more than this, but I regret that this debate has been confused with the notion that in some way this legislation is an assault on the institution of marriage. I just want to rebut that.Mrs Burke
: No, I have not said that.
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