Page 5744 - Week 15 - Thursday, 10 December 2009
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Tasmanian parliament. And that may well be all that it takes in order for Tasmania to stand up for the rights of same-sex couples and to move this issue forward down in Tasmania.
Although it has been tough, I do acknowledge that there are many people in the gay and lesbian community who have been very disappointed by this outcome. But on the whole, I think that we do need to acknowledge that it is a step forward. And we are not going to stop here. We will continue, and we ask other states and territories to also move forward on this issue. It is 2009. It is time that, in the 21st century, we acknowledge and respect diverse families and couples of all sorts and types. It is time to move forward. Therefore, I welcome the progress that the ACT Assembly has made here today.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (5.30), in reply: I would like to thank those members who have expressed their support for this bill.
There are a few observations that I would like to make in the context of this debate. Regrettably, the first has to be the absence of any socially progressive perspective from the major opposition party in this place: the complete failure of a Liberal Party—a Liberal Party—to recognise diversity and provide for equality before the law of what are a significant number of Canberra citizens. Where is the liberal approach in the complete failure of the ACT Liberals, the Canberra Liberals, to recognise and accept diversity in our city?
Gay and lesbian people in Canberra do not just vote Labor or green; they vote Liberal too. Where is the recognition of that diversity from the Liberal Party? Where is the recognition of that diversity and the need for it to be accorded respect and equality before the law in this place? There has been a complete failure on the part of a major representative party in this place to have regard to that. As a party, they should reflect on their failure to properly reflect their constituency—not just the minority views of the conservative, religious right.
The bill before us today is very much, as Mr Rattenbury said, a consequence of the constitutional environment in which we operate. We do not have the same sovereignty that a state parliament has. We are constrained by the constitutional arrangements of the federation, and we must operate within that reality.
That does not mean that we should not seek to argue that as an Assembly we should have the responsibility to determine our own views on matters that affect our own citizens. In this territory, there is a long and proud history of advancing the cause of self-determination. Indeed, we buried one long-time respected and leading advocate of self-determination for this territory, Jim Pead, only in the last few weeks. The fight that he took up to provide for proper self-determination for this city and for this territory is a fight that continues today. Many great advances have been made, but there are more to be achieved.
The fact that we have to present this bill today highlights that there is much more to be achieved. In particular, there is the reform of our constitution, the self-government
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