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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 887 ..
particular sort of domestic relationship and what we are doing today is recognising, with full legal status, another sort of domestic relationship.
I do not care what order you put it in. The amendment is significant in that it says that there are a number of different types which are no more meritorious than the other. They are all equal. I do not care if you want to put them side by side in a column. However, the purpose of this amendment is to recognise that there are different sorts of domestic relationships.
MS TUCKER
(4.16): The Greens will not be supporting this amendment. I have listened to the arguments from Mr Smyth and Mrs Dunne. Mr Smyth put the argument that the Liberals' amendment is important because it covers all that needs to be covered. Well, so does the government's wording in the bill. Mr Smyth says that the wording of his amendment reflects the different situations that people live in. The government's wording covers those different situations.I am not sure whether you want to argue that the wording in the bill does not clearly reflect different situations. "Domestic partnership"is defined in subsection (2) of proposed new section 169 as being "the relationship between 2 people"-so what we have got in common is two people-"whether of a different or the same sex"-reflecting that there may be different combinations of the two people-"living together as a couple on a genuine domestic basis". Subsection (1) makes reference to "someone who lives with the person in a domestic partnership, and includes a spouse". I think that reflects perfectly well the different situations that people live in.
Mr Smyth also said that his amendment is consistent with federal law. I have not heard any argument to show that the government's legislation is not consistent with federal law. If that is the case, you will need to stand up and tell me again, and I will then listen to the government's response. But it is not our understanding, from the work that we have done, that it is not consistent with federal law.
Mrs Dunne said that there is a concern that the notion of what is the right way for people to live together is diminished in some way by the current wording that the government has put forward. Jon Stanhope has already expressed, and no doubt Ms Dundas will express, the concern I have that the Liberal's amendment fundamentally undermines the whole intention of this legislation. I am not going to argue about a hierarchy. I do not think it is about a hierarchy and obviously the Liberals do not either because they said they do not care about the order in which the categories in their amendment are placed.
The amendment fundamentally undermines the intention of this legislation, which is to say that it is legitimate for two people in any of the situations to which reference has been made to be in a domestic relationship-that it does not matter whether they have chosen to go into a church, sign a bit of paper and have a priest do something; it does not matter whether two people who love each other have their own ceremony; it does not matter whether they are two women or two men or a man and a woman; none of that matters. This is what this legislation is about and that is why we do not need the Liberal's amendment.
MS DUNDAS
(4.19): Mr Speaker, the ACT Democrats will not be supporting Mr Smyth's amendment. I have just had put in front of me an amendment to Mr Smyth's
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