Friday, November 19, 2004
Un-bridaled power
The government’s announcement that it will rush the Civil Union Bill through early in December is yet another outrageous wielding of parliamentary power.
The government has announced that the Second Reading of the Civil Union Bill will be held on December 2, and it wants to pass the Bill into law the following week.
More than 6,000 submissions were received by the Select Committee reviewing the Bill, and at least 90 percent of those opposed the Bill.
The committee was not due to report back to parliament until 23 December, and as recent as two days ago chairman Tim Barnett was saying there had been no request to report earlier. This was obviously a lie.
In the event, it is probable that MPs will receive the Select Committee's report less than 24 hours before the debate. And going by what has happened in the last few occasions when select committees have dealt with contentious social topics, the report will be a 6/5 split, with Labour and Green MPs on one side, and all other parties on the other.
This is the second example in only a week of the government using a heavy hand to push through issues which are highly contentious.
Many MPs have not had time to properly consider what’s at stake in the Civil Union Bill. In fact, some MPs on the committee have said that even they have read only the submissions of those people who appeared before them.
The opinions and research of many thousands of people who took a great deal of time and effort to write to the committee, but for various reasons were unable to make a personal appearance, lie unread and ignored.
If this Bill is passed, it will cause untold harm to marriage and family in New Zealand. A civil union will be equivalent to marriage in virtually all legal respects, while its companion Bill – the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill – will make all relationships legally equivalent to marriage, whether registered or not.
In that sense, the Civil Union Bill is completely unnecessary. Once the two are passed, there will be no legal reason why anyone in New Zealand should marry.
The Civil Union Bill is also another case where NZ is out of step with Australia. That government recently revised the Marriage Act to say explicitly that marriage is only between a man and woman; it also stated that same-sex marriages contracted elsewhere will not be recognised in Australia.
The government’s announcement that it will rush the Civil Union Bill through early in December is yet another outrageous wielding of parliamentary power.
The government has announced that the Second Reading of the Civil Union Bill will be held on December 2, and it wants to pass the Bill into law the following week.
More than 6,000 submissions were received by the Select Committee reviewing the Bill, and at least 90 percent of those opposed the Bill.
The committee was not due to report back to parliament until 23 December, and as recent as two days ago chairman Tim Barnett was saying there had been no request to report earlier. This was obviously a lie.
In the event, it is probable that MPs will receive the Select Committee's report less than 24 hours before the debate. And going by what has happened in the last few occasions when select committees have dealt with contentious social topics, the report will be a 6/5 split, with Labour and Green MPs on one side, and all other parties on the other.
This is the second example in only a week of the government using a heavy hand to push through issues which are highly contentious.
Many MPs have not had time to properly consider what’s at stake in the Civil Union Bill. In fact, some MPs on the committee have said that even they have read only the submissions of those people who appeared before them.
The opinions and research of many thousands of people who took a great deal of time and effort to write to the committee, but for various reasons were unable to make a personal appearance, lie unread and ignored.
If this Bill is passed, it will cause untold harm to marriage and family in New Zealand. A civil union will be equivalent to marriage in virtually all legal respects, while its companion Bill – the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill – will make all relationships legally equivalent to marriage, whether registered or not.
In that sense, the Civil Union Bill is completely unnecessary. Once the two are passed, there will be no legal reason why anyone in New Zealand should marry.
The Civil Union Bill is also another case where NZ is out of step with Australia. That government recently revised the Marriage Act to say explicitly that marriage is only between a man and woman; it also stated that same-sex marriages contracted elsewhere will not be recognised in Australia.
