Page 3740 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The commonwealth executive, or for that matter the unelected Governor-General, cannot pretend to represent the views of the people of the territory in this regard. It is a direct attack on the democratic principle for the Howard government to substitute its own views for the views of those elected to represent the territory. We are a body politic, we have a plenary grant of power, and we are elected by free election on the basis of policies known clearly to the electorate.
Members of this Assembly have debated and passed a great number of laws since self-government and this has been a lawful exercise of the legislative power of the various parliaments of the Assembly, made in pursuance of political mandates given by the people at democratic election. By convention, the crown seldom intervenes once a law is made so as to delay or frustrate the commencement of the law, save in unusual circumstances where the law, because of its exceptional circumstances, might be beyond the power of the parliament.
By longstanding convention, the Governor-General does not send back to the commonwealth parliament advice to the effect that he or she has chosen not to enact a law passed by the two houses of that parliament. Imagine the uproar if the Senate and the House of Representatives passed an act of parliament and the Governor-General said no. Imagine the uproar, and rightly so. But that is what happened to us, that is the convention that has been broken and that is why this power should no longer be available.
Mr Speaker, the autocratic action of the commonwealth executive to quash the law of an elected parliament is constitutionally suspect and politically bad. As I have indicated to members and to the broader community, the government will not be giving up on the issue of recognition of civil partnerships and we will introduce a new bill to provide for a new way of recognising these relationships.
It is interesting, I think, to draw members’ attention to the commonwealth’s reasons given for the disallowance of the Civil Unions Act. They said:
The Civil Unions Act 2006 … created a statutory scheme for the recognition of relationships which bore a marked similarity to the Commonwealth’s scheme for the regulation of marriage. This legislation appeared to—
not “did”; “appeared to”—
undermine marriage, attempted to circumvent the Marriage Act … and may—
“may”—
have created ambiguity between civil unions and marriage.
Nobody in this Assembly is seeking to undermine, to circumvent or to blur the distinction between marriage and civil union. What we seek is the power to determine that we will make a law that recognises the rights of all people in relationships, regardless of their sex, age, religion, ethnic background or any other characteristics that they may have which are not adequately recognised or nurtured by the laws of the commonwealth. That is what we seek to do.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .