Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Justice) : I move, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill that it take the bill part by part.

• Motion agreed to.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Minister for the Environment) : I move, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Animal Products (Dairy Products and Other Matters) Bill that it take the bill part by part.

• Motion agreed to.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : This bill is one of a number of bills from this Government that attacks the family as an institution in New Zealand, undermines marriage, and imposes on our country the politically correct view that all relationships, whether they be a marriage between a man and a woman, a civil union, or a de facto relationship, are just the same. It is like a National Certificate of Educational Achievement of family life—that is, it makes absolutely no difference to the Minister in the chair, Marian Hobbs, and to the Government whether a person is in a lifelong relationship or simply in a de facto relationship.

I firstly want to draw the attention of the Committee to the quite deceitful way in which this Government advances its legislation through Parliament. We should be having a debate on the changes to the Care of Children Act, the Income Tax Act 2004, the Estate and Gift Duties Act, the New Zealand Superannuation Act, the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act, and changes to all number of statutes, but the Government has developed a sneaky trick. Rather than the bills having individual parts, so that this Parliament might debate each of them, the Government has come up with this sneaky drafting technique called subparts. This means that rather than having a debate on each of the amendments, the Government is able to rush through wads of legislation—hundreds of pages of legislation—and slam it through Parliament, with disrespect for democracy. These are significant changes, they will have major impacts on the lives of New Zealanders, and they should not be rammed through in this rough and cavalier way.

I want to focus particularly on the definitions that are provided in this bill in respect of de facto relationships. I draw the Committee’s attention to these because they are of enormous significance. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who are living in de facto relationships will have a whole number of their legal rights changed by this bill. They need to know, and society needs to know, whether they are in a de facto relationship that will be affected by these laws. The public needs certainty, yet what we see is a quite secular definition in respect of de facto relationships. There is absolutely no certainty. In fact, the select committee even took out the basic criteria. All we know now is that any two people who are living in a house—a couple of men, a couple of women, or maybe a man and a woman—will be in a sort of Reverend Moon exercise; automatically married off in their thousands, by this Government. I say again that Reverend Moon will be jealous of what this Government is attempting to do.

But I would like to know who is and who is not in a de facto relationship. If members look at the definition provided by the Government in clause 40, they will see that it gives us absolutely no clarity at all. And it matters. It is absolutely vital for a doctor in a hospital who is dealing with the emotionally charged environment of a person on life support, and the decision as to whether that life-support machine will be turned on or off, to know who is the next of kin.People need to know. But does this law give us any clarity as to whether a person is or is not in a de facto relationship? At least the matrimonial property legislation passed 4 years ago provides that the relationship has to be 3 years old. We still do not know exactly what the starting point is for the 3 years, but at least there is some time required. But the way this bill is written means that all these legal requirements take effect the day after a person enters a de facto relationship.

The importance of this definition is that all these legal changes suddenly take effect and cover issues such as who is a step-parent, who gets rights under the Care of Children Act, who gets superannuation payments, who gets particular rights in the court, who gets particular rights under our tax legislation, and who gets particular inheritances under our estate legislation. It is my strong submission to this Parliament that we need to provide our citizens with clarity around that issue.

There is clarity when a person gets married. It is absolutely clear. There is a date, there is a certificate, and there is an open ceremony. But how are our public authorities and, more important, how are our citizens to know when they are in a legally defined de facto relationship, with all these provisions?

The second point is the doublespeak from the Government with this bill. The Prime Minister said that we are not going to have gay marriage. She knew that middle New Zealand would not accept gay marriage. So what the Government did was to give it a different name, but make it exactly identical in law! If we go through all the 168 statutes that are being amended by this bill we are saying there is absolutely no difference between a gay couple and a married couple. That is not what the Prime Minister told the people of New Zealand. This bill is gay marriage by stealth.

Members opposite do not have the courage to say to the people of New Zealand exactly what it is they are doing. They want to dress it up. They are not prepared to be straight with the people of New Zealand and say that this bill is about gay marriage. Let no member walk away from that. Then we have the cuteness around all the amendments, where the Government says: “Oh, no, no. We think marriage is really important, so what we are going to do is protect the definition of ‘husband and wife’ but all the legal rights will be exactly the same for those who are in a two-men or a two-women relationship.”

I say that is wrong, for this very simple reason. In this Parliament yesterday we had a fascinating lecture on the issue of demographics and the issue that fewer and fewer people are choosing to be parents. Little wonder, when we have this Government passing one statute after another that attacks the family and belittles the role that parents play. The statement made by the Prime Minister that a mum staying home with children is not contributing to our economy, is just one of a whole number of insults from this Government to families and to those who do the hard yards of raising the next generation in our country.

What Labour does not understand is that the family is the most important institution in our society. What this Government does not understand is that having a man and woman, a husband and wife, committed to raising their children is an institution that pre-dates this Parliament, it is an institution that pre-dates all the political correctness that has completely enveloped this Government. It has forgotten all of that, and it will pay a high price for it. Middle New Zealand understands that the best social policy, the best a Government can do for our children, is to support families and not to support this PC legislation.

It is extraordinary to look at the number of step-parents that a child will be able to acquire through this process. There is absolutely no time frame required as to when those sorts of rights will be acquired. That is where this Government completely ignores all the research. In all the social policy research—and it is highly contested—one factor is absolutely true. Children, on average, do best when they are raised in a stable family involving their mum and their dad. Of course there are situations of single-parent mums who work their heart out and do their best for their children, and I salute them.. But I also say that this Minister and this Government ignore the social policy research that shows in terms of drug abuse, in terms of educational achievement, in terms of this country’s appalling youth suicide figures, in terms of unemployment, and in terms of youth crime, that those children who grow up in stable households with a loving mum and dad are the least at risk.

Why would the Labour Party want to ignore that social policy research, in developing statutes of this sort? My simple view is that it is more interested in playing to its own politically select group of supporters than in the long-term interests of our nation. There will be no limit to the amount of difficulties and complications these legal changes will cause for individual New Zealanders, as they suddenly grapple with the extent of this Government’s social engineering. I remember hearing somewhere that someone said this country needs engineering of our roads, not of our families. I say that that is true.

Finally, I wish to say there was a huge amount of heat and debate around the Civil Union Act. In so many respects these changes to over 160 statutes are more significant than that legislation. It is more significant, because this is the meat. This is the place where we are saying—right across the board—that the Government is imposing its will, that there is no difference in a relationship. In Labour’s view two young people shacked up together, same sex or different sex, with no long-term commitment is the same as marriage. I do not buy the line that it is the same for all relationships simply to be treated equally or identically in law. Relationships are different. It is time this Parliament recognised that. It is also time Parliament recognised that society is best served by long-term committed relationships. That is why society, for hundreds of years, has provided legal protection for marriage. It is a mistake for this Parliament to undervalue marriage, to undermine it, and to say that in all these Acts marriages, de facto relationships, and same-sex relationships are identical. I say they are not.

BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) : Alvin Toffler said: “Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur.” Statutory social workers deal with the most extreme situations affecting the well-being of children, young people, and their families. They make judgments that no other agency or professional is called upon to make, within a system that requires them constantly to reassess priorities and risks. They are in the business of predicting human behaviour when it is beyond the ability of any social-work system to anticipate accurately and consistently how people will act.

The questions I ask are: why is it this way, and why has it become this way? Besides the decisions that people make on how they want to live their lives, we have laws introduced in this nation that have contributed to the breaking down of the family structure and its importance. First, there was the Prostitution Reform Bill; second, the Civil Union Bill; and, third, today we have the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. In relation to the Prostitution Reform Act, for example, we hear and understand that a lot of our young girls are now going off to Australia for better work conditions. New Zealand First predicted that all of these things would take place. Now we have the Civil Union Act—same-sex relationships. Then, to support the Civil Union Act, we have the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. There is a term used by Māori—namely, whare tangata. Translated, it means the home or house of man. This is in reference to the women for whom, without them and the sanctity that is theirs, life would not continue in perpetuity.

We have a lifestyle now creeping in that takes away the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and what womenfolk mean to us in this world today. We have in this Parliament individuals who have made known their support for the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. Is this an indication that it is also reinforcing the desire to support civil unions? Would this Labour-led Government support the initiative of a public referendum on this issue and allow the huge majority who are against this bill to have their say?

For me, this bill is an add-on to the Civil Union Act. It gives same-sex couples the same privileges as the founders of our society—namely, marriage, husband and wife. This bill should be consigned to the rubbish bin because it is wrong and that is where it belongs. I am not going to debate the laws and Acts that have taken place and the research that has been taking place, I am saying to this Committee that it is wrong.

On my flight down from Hamilton on Tuesday morning I overheard the air hostess talking about families to a passenger who was sitting right in front of me. She expressed her concern about what is happening today. She talked about how her mother and father brought her up—how her father worked and her mother remained at home to look after the kids. She is a single woman who has chosen a career that interests her, and I think that when the decision comes for her to be married that will be how she will take care of her family.

Statistics were given in the House yesterday in relation to the adverse effects that have been proven to be caused to our families because of people of the same gender taking a liking to each other. Let us face it, there are many countries that have gone down this track and suffered because of it. When will this Government wake up to the social engineering that has taken place, and the social problems that exist now and are prevalent in our families today? Money cannot solve those problems. We are putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. In old Māori times families were of the utmost importance, and children and grandchildren were of the utmost importance to that family social structure. Now we have laws brought into this Parliament to destroy that.

Anei aku kōrero ki a koutou ngā Māori o tēnā taha o te Whare. Kei te tautoko koutou i tēnei pire. Pēhea ngā tamariki me ngā mokopuna?

• [These are my words to you the Māori members on that side of the House. You are supporting this bill. What about the children and grandchildren?]

I am speaking to the Māori members of the Government. Do they support this bill? What about our families who have been brought up in love, to honour and cherish their parents, and to respect each other?

Hon Mita Ririnui: They are carrying on.

BILL GUDGEON: Kāre, they are not carrying on because we are bringing into the existence of the laws of this land bills that will destroy that. Prove me wrong! They never will. Kei te noho koutou i tēnā taha. Kāre ō koutou waha e hāmama ana ki ngā pire e hara mai ana ki roto i tēnei Whare.

• [And there you sit on that side. Your mouths remain closed when bills are brought into this House for debate.]

Those members are sitting on that side and their mouths are closed. They are supposed to be representative of the people in their electorates. I hope they are hearing me today. I am vehemently against this bill and I hope those people out there who are listening will challenge the Government about these things at the next election.

Dail Jones: On behalf of New Zealand First.

BILL GUDGEON: On behalf of New Zealand First. I was asked in a radio interview on a Monday morning 2 weeks ago: “These bills that have come before the House, do you think the population of New Zealand will forget it?”. My answer was: “Not if I can help it. Not if I can help it, because they will destroy our nation.”

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) : I wanted to take a call in the Committee stage of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill because I am one of those who, at the second reading, changed position. I voted in support of this bill at its first reading because as I read through and tried to make sense of the very many Acts of Parliament that it sought to change, most of what I read seemed to be adjusting and providing opportunities for couples other than married couples on issues that I did not believe, of themselves, undermined the core purpose of marriage.

Let me explain what I believe by that. I believe that, in its crudest sense, marriage is actually about breeding. When we look at the legal constraints around marriage, it is very clear that I am right. The three constraints are that marriage is heterosexual, that it is between two people, and that it must not be incestuous. In the Civil Union Bill, which I opposed, we took one of those aspects of marriage and said that based on human rights it no longer applied. I believed that the rights that were being sought could be given in ways other than through a civil union. However, I was happy to support the bill, to let it go to a select committee, and to allow public submissions to make sense of what was proposed.

There are two reasons I have changed my mind. The first is that on closer examination, many, many of those amendments are a complete nonsense. They are giving rights to people for whom, in recent years, those rights have never been denied. There is almost a culture of victimisation that seems to play on the guilt of those in Parliament that suggests, due to kinship status, people have been banned, barred, or unable to have legal redress in some area. I find that on closer examination many of those claims are just not true.

The second reason I am now opposing this bill is that it is now completely reliant on the civil union legislation—which I opposed; I disagreed with that—as a mechanism for supplying those few provisions in the bill that I think are possibly worthy of consideration. As I stated at the beginning of my speech, my opposition to civil unions is that, despite claims made by people to the contrary, it very much undermines marriage as we know it. I am extremely concerned and interested in an amendment that we have just found, proposed by Nandor Tanczos, to put the civil union provisions into amending the Adoption Act. It shows exactly the concern I have that this bill is a little dishonest in that it was very selective about the legislation that it would amend at this time. The amendments that really do strike at the heart of what it means to be family and at what marriage was always originally about are very much addressed in Mr Tanczos’ proposal, because it intends to provide for non-breeding units the rights to have the children whom, by the choices they have made, they would normally have walked away from.

I do believe that there has been a huge amount of dishonesty and manipulation of people’s thinking. I believe that the middle New Zealand that everybody is scrambling to attract in this election year would have been a lot more resistant to this legislation if the adoption provisions had been included. They were very cunningly left out, and I am sure that in the not too distant future the types of provisions Mr Tanczos wants will be addressed in an even more comprehensive way than he is now proposing.

I am always interested when we start advocating for human rights. We have made a bit of an industry out of human rights, and we are inventing them at a great rate of knots.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : There are two key areas that I would like to cover in the debate on this part of the bill this afternoon, but first of all I would like to reiterate our Green Party commitment to the fundamental human rights contained in this bill. We certainly welcome the removal of discriminatory references on the basis of marital status and sexual orientation that are currently contained in a wide range of New Zealand law. I contrast this with the in-work payment now enshrined in the Working for Families package, where discrimination on the grounds of employment status is actually retained and entrenched. It is a real pity that the Government cannot see fit to extend its commitment to human rights, seen so demonstrably in this bill, to all its legislative programme.

However, on behalf of the Green Party I would like to say how pleased we are with the conclusion the Government came to, particularly in relation to the part of this bill before us today, which deals with certain proposed amendments to the Social Security Act. As a result of submissions from a number of organisations and individuals, and of discussion in the Justice and Electoral Committee, amendments to the Social Security Act that had originally been put up, relating to de facto couples in social welfare law, have now been omitted from the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. We had serious concerns all along about that aspect of the bill as introduced, seeing the original clauses as a misguided attempt to define the term “de facto relationship” involving a checklist approach, both in the general definition to be inserted in the Interpretation Act, and in the specific definition that had been proposed to be inserted in the Social Security Act. We are delighted that the checklist approach has been removed.

Courts have consistently stated—most notably in the Ruka Court of Appeal judgment—that what constitutes a de facto relationship or a relationship in the nature of marriage must be interpreted in the context of the purpose of the particular legislation that it relates to. That means, for example, that social security law has a different purpose from domestic violence legislation, so these terms must be interpreted currently in accordance with the respective purposes of those Acts. A “tick the box” method of decision making, which is what this bill originally proposed, would have been certain to lead to the same sort of inequity, and to a de facto overturning of the Ruka decision.

The Green Party is also pleased to see that the select committee recommended the removal from the bill of attempts to codify court judgments on relationships in the nature of marriage in terms of the Social Security Act. They were subject to widespread criticism from beneficiary advocacy and social service agencies as not accurately reflecting social security case law. Although the Green Party would welcome a move towards greater individual entitlement, and away from people’s benefit entitlement being so totally dependent on whom they may be in a relationship with and the very specific nature of that relationship, we do not see this bill as being the appropriate vehicle for implementing that move.

In terms of making current law consistent, we welcome the committee’s recommendations, which continue to allow existing case law to be applied. However, I would just like to offer a small word of warning. Following the Ruka judgment, it took several years for Work and Income and its previous incarnations to properly apply the judgment. The Ministry of Social Development will, no doubt, be subject to the same malicious allegations of a homophobic nature when same-sex relationships fall within the ambit of the Social Security Act in 2007. The rabid intolerance of some of the submitters opposed to this bill and its companion Civil Union Bill makes that outcome inevitable.

The slowness of benefit control units to adapt to the Ruka judgment does not instil confidence that they will be well prepared to deal with that extra layer of misinformation, which comes at them from all sorts of sources. There must be a commitment from the Government that the ministry will investigate allegations of same-sex relationships in a sensitive manner and with some effort to establish whether there is any substance to the allegation before interviewing the beneficiary. Otherwise, there will be a perception of harassment, not just because that person is a beneficiary but also because the person is homosexual. Because of that, we would like to see eventually—but not in this bill, I can assure the Minister—an amendment to the Social Security Act that would make it an offence to make a false allegation or report to the Ministry of Social Development, so that no one will continue to be maliciously harassed in the way that happens at the moment. But that is a more general amendment that needs to be made to social security law, and I will look for an appropriate place to do that.

Turning now to the second matter I would like to deal with in relation to this part of the bill, the Green Party has several amendments on the Table this afternoon in the name of Nandor Tanczos dealing with citizenship and adoption matters. While the first amendment that we have tabled, to do with adoption, may be seen to be rather radical by some of the socially conservative members of this Parliament, I believe that all members voting for this bill today should be able to consider including and supporting the amendment we are proposing to the Citizenship Act.

In relation to citizenship, we are proposing two changes so that civil union partnerships are treated in a similar manner to married couples. The amendment we have tabled to section 3 of that Act relates to the presumption of parentage of children. Under current law, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a person is presumed to be the father of someone if he is or was married to that person’s mother at the time of conception or birth. Our amendments extend that presumption to people in formal civil union relationships. That fits solidly, I believe, with the intent of the bill before us.

Our amendment to section 8A(1) relates to the Minister’s authorisation to grant New Zealand citizenship to anybody who is, or has been, married to a New Zealand citizen and who meets set requirements. Our amendment merely extends the right of citizenship to civil union partners of New Zealand citizens. I cannot think of one valid reason why it should not be extended to civil union partners. Those entering a civil partnership will not do so lightly, and are making a solemn commitment of partnership and mutual support. Civil union partners will be required to bear the same legal responsibilities as married couples do now in relation to eligibility for benefits—which is what I have just been talking about—and to income tax, and the State should therefore confer on them similar rights and privileges. In determining who can be a citizen in his or her own right, the law does not and should not discriminate on the grounds of sexuality. It is therefore inconsistent that we should discriminate against same-sex couples who take that extra step of entering a civil union.

This is a very moderate amendment. We are not proposing an extension to all de facto couples, but only to civil union couples at this stage. The Government has said that it was not included in the bill as drafted because the issue of citizenship is under review. I say we should meet the principle of equality first, thus meeting our human rights obligations, then allow the review to continue its process. Changes made in the end, through the review, will then apply both to married and to civil union partners.

The second area in which we propose amendments is that of adoption. In the current Adoption Act only the terms “husband” and “wife” are used. We believe that the right to adoption should be extended to those in a civil union partnership. The debate on the Care of Children Bill showed the prejudice of many members who did not believe that same-sex couples could bring up children in a healthy, loving way. Unfortunately, the statistics show that child abuse is predominantly found in heterosexual relationships, and many of those people are married. There is no correlation between homosexual couples and any form of child abuse, child violence, and all the rest of it. In a 2000 submission to the Law Commission, the Human Rights Commission stated in paragraph 197: “We consider that same sex couples should be able to adopt subject to the same criteria as heterosexual couples.” Although I agree with the Human Rights Commission, in recognition of the conservatism of Parliament our amendment is more moderate than that. We propose that only those couples who have made a formal commitment to each other, either through marriage or through a civil union, be given legal rights to adopt. As the Human Rights Commission says, the determinative issue should be the quality of upbringing that a couple would be able to provide to an adopted child, rather than their marital status. Again, we understand that a review of adoption is taking place, but given that this bill is in front of us and we have a chance to make the amendment now, we do not see the need to wait.

This bill is all about ending discrimination against same-sex couples. At the very least, I ask the Minister to take a call and make a commitment today that the reviews will address that inequity.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill is the companion bill to the Civil Union Act. Without it, the Civil Union Act does not mean a thing. This bill puts into 100 or so other Acts, and into many regulations, the references to civil union that make the Civil Union Act more than simply a pantomime of marriage.

In this debate on Part 1 I want to address three things. Firstly, unlike most bills, a series of commencement dates are scattered through this part. They are quite curious. The commencement dates of some of the extensions in this legislation are very odd. In effect, they show that despite the Government’s policy that it will now treat same-sex couples in the same way as heterosexual married couples, and that it wants to treat de facto couples, wherever possible—or wherever this Parliament would allow—in the same way as married couples, it has drawn a curious distinction. We still have, and will for at least 2 more years, a privilege for same-sex couples in welfare law.

Same-sex couples will not be forced to go on to the married or de facto benefit. Same-sex couples will be able to claim benefits as if they were single, and I understand from the Justice and Electoral Committee evidence that that relates to about an extra $60 per week for a couple in that position. The reason offered is that they will need time to adjust. That is from the Government that compulsorily married people 2 years ago when it changed matrimonial property law. It did not give those people time to adjust. The only adjustment people could make there was to bust up their relationship. I find that provision offensive. If we were truly attempting to remove discrimination and treat people equally, same-sex couples should be taking the bad with the good—the detriments and obligations along with the benefits.

I think it is disgraceful, because the gay couples—friends of mine—who spoke to me about this said that they thought it was demeaning and that they did not want it. They thought that this bill should be making a strong statement of non-discrimination. Instead, the Government has justified this little extra perk for the people it wants to favour with this bill in a way that, if I were sitting on the Government benches, I would be absolutely ashamed of. It is such a small thing but it is so significant in terms of its symbolism and it so undermines the claim that this legislation treats people equally.

I also want to mention the enormous range of changes made in the schedules that are authorised by this part. Clause 92, the last in this part, states: “The Acts specified in Schedule 13 are amended in the manner set out in that schedule.” When we look at clause 13 we find that the Human Rights Act is being amended. That Act has marital status as one of the prohibited grounds of discrimination. It stuns me that marital status got into the Human Rights Act without an absolute uproar from everyone concerned about the status of our family law. Every church should have been outraged about the inclusion of marital status as a prohibited ground of discrimination. It is hard to think of how any society upholds what it regards as sensible, favourable, or desirable arrangements without allowing ordinary people to show preference to those arrangements.

The fact that people may want not to associate with those in relationships that they disapprove of should not be something in criminal law or that penalties can be imposed on. It is a very real problem in human rights law for the State to make that discrimination. I could perfectly well understand the Government supporting a provision in the Human Rights Act stating that the State must be neutral about relationships and that it should not pick favourites.

I could understand an argument on that basis. I may not agree with it if it were extended to every type of relationship, but I could certainly understand the argument. But it is utterly wrong for the State to say that it will put into the hands of commissars on the Human Rights Review Tribunal or the Human Rights Commission the power to punish those who want to draw distinctions in their social or business life on the basis of the kinds of relationships they think are best for society. Therefore, I have an amendment that would change the effect of clause 92 by reinstating the power for people to choose to favour the forms of relationships they believe are good for society.

The amendment is very simple. It would simply remove a paragraph in section 21 of the Human Rights Act so that marital status once again became something that people were entitled to take into account when deciding whom they wanted to associate with, employ, or favour. More than that, it would protect churches from, for example, being forced to make their church halls available to conduct a civil union ceremony.

This bill does nothing to protect that elementary liberty. There are thousands of celebrants and hundreds of thousands of locations for carrying out civil unions, and nothing should allow people who oppose civil unions to apply force to stop them. On the other hand, nothing in our law should force those who believe that civil unions are wrong to be associated with them against their will. My amendment says, quite clearly, that those who think such relationships are wrong should be free to continue to argue that and to show in the way they live that they mean their beliefs.

It is completely wrong, in a society that values freedom, for the provision that bans that form of discrimination to remain in the Human Rights Act, and it is wrong to have no protection against all the other busybody agencies that might decide to impose the Labour Cabinet’s fashionable views of morality and relationships, and to punish people whose views are different and who want to express their views in their employment or other relationships. The proposed amendment, which would have effect by virtue of clause 92, is one that everyone who believes in freedom should support—particularly those who adhere to the form of classical liberal freedom that states: “I may oppose your views but I will defend to the death your right to express them and to live by them, as long as you are not coercive to those who think differently.”

Part 1 is also the part that effects a whole range of other amendments that have been modified in a very intuitive way by the select committee. The select committee realised almost as soon as it started this task that if we adhered to the Human Rights Act view that discrimination on the grounds of marital status is wrong, we could not really do justice to this bill. This bill, in its introduced form, simply stated that marriage makes no difference. It stated that de facto relationships, whether they are short or long, are the equivalent of marriage, and that that was to be written into the law. The select committee changed that, but we did so in a very intuitive way. We went through the bill, looking at each bit, and each member of the committee applied what he or she considered to be a common-sense view of the purpose of the provision and decided whether it should be included.

The bill should have contained a clear statement of principle. It should have said very clearly that the choice of competent adults will be respected. Those who choose not to marry or who choose to enter into a civil union should have the dignity of their choice respected by the law. This bill should not be overriding those choices. The most it should perhaps be doing is saying that where there are children of a union—whether it is a union blessed by the Church or by a registry office, or whether it is a civil union—the children are entitled to stability and to some commitment from their parents. They ought to know that there is enough sharing of assets to justify—

PANSY WONG (National) : I support the Civil Union Act because I believe in individuals making commitments to each other. Regrettably, the Labour Government’s pre-emptive move a few years back in introducing the Property (Relationships) Amendment Act makes it difficult for me to support this piece of accompanying legislation to the Civil Union Act but, because I support the Civil Union Act, I will vote for this bill.

The fact that the Labour Government a few years ago introduced the Property (Relationships) Amendment Act to recognise—or should I say “impose” almost—obligations on de facto relationships has made the passage of the Civil Union Act through the Parliament a lot more difficult. Most of us believe, in one form or another, that legal recognition, rights, and responsibilities should be accorded to individuals who make a deliberate choice to make a commitment to each other. But to impose any further obligations on individuals, other than those who choose to commit to each other—either a man and a woman through the Marriage Act, or a man and a woman or people of the same gender through the Civil Union Act—because they are living in “a relationship in the nature of marriage” is, to me, entirely unnecessary. It is State interference taken too far.

So I seek to have the Minister take a call to reassure members like me that in the deletion of a lot of references to de facto couples in this current bill there has been at least some attempt to recognise the special status of relationships that Parliament has passed legislation—the Marriage Act and the Civil Union Act—to recognise. I hope that in the future Parliament will revisit this issue and say that as society, through the Parliament, has enacted legislation to recognise relationships under either the Marriage Act or the Civil Union Act, then people who have deliberately chosen to live together in a de facto relationship should have no further obligations to, or interference from, the State. I am sure that Parliament will revisit that issue at some stage in the future.

I listened with interest to the speeches and read with interest the minority report from United Future. United Future has a quite interesting perspective on the union of men and women: “… the cultural expectation of marriage as being an exclusive commitment for life between a man and a woman for the primary purpose of successfully nurturing the next generation.” I found that quite interesting. I am kind of grateful that when I was young and still, shall I say, idealistic my husband and I happened to fall in love. I am not at all sure that at that stage I allowed the primary objective of being the breeding ground for the next generation to dictate our relationship. I am glad that after 20-odd years of marriage my husband has not chosen to use that as grounds for divorce. I think that in modern times we need to recognise that individuals come together for emotional reasons as well.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Justice) : A number of issues have been raised that I would like to address. I do not intend to enter into any argument about people’s individual beliefs, but I, with the officials behind me, will attempt to answer members’ questions seeking clarification of the bill.

Dr Nick Smith, when he spoke first, said that the definition of a de facto relationship could include the relationships of followers of Reverend Moon. The definition in clause 40 states: “In an enactment, de facto relationship means a relationship between 2 people (whether a man and a woman, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman) who—(a) live together as a couple in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union; and (b) are not married to, or in a civil union with, each other; and (c) are both aged 16 years or older.” I think it is quite clear that we are not talking about large households of the kind that that member was referring to.

Also, he made the point that couples will have difficulties determining whether they are in a de facto relationship. Over 90 pieces of legislation, which represent almost half of all laws that contain rights and responsibilities for persons in a relationship, already recognise de facto couples. Many of these have been in force for several years, and most do not have a definition of de facto relationships such as there is in this bill. There is no evidence from the courts that decision makers, or the couples themselves, do not know whether couples are in a de facto relationship.

The last point that Dr Smith raised that I will address is his view that this bill, although talking about civil union, is really about gay marriage. I will read from the introduction of the report that was put out by the select committee: “The main aim of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill was to amend Acts and regulations that contain unjustified discrimination on the grounds of marital status or sexual orientation.” It is quite limiting. “The bill is the primary statutory vehicle for implementing the Consistency 2000 project”—which was commenced by Dr Smith’s party in the 1990s and was a very worthy project—“and its successor the Compliance 2001 project …”. That is one comment that I wanted to make.

Sue Bradford raised the question of Nandor Tanczos’ amendments to two Acts that are not considered in this bill—namely, the Citizenship Act and the Adoption Act. Because we are not amending those Acts in the bill that is before us, Nandor Tanczos or his representative will have to ask the Committee to agree to those amendments being considered. I say now that I will not agree that his amendments proceed. The reason is that both those Acts are under review. As Associate Minister of Justice, I know about the adoption legislation, and the citizenship legislation is a long way further down the review process than the adoption legislation is.

Mr Tanczos is, in a sense, demonstrating some of the mistakes that the House has made in the past in dealing with human rights, by including one thing—civil unions—when dealing with citizenship, and leaving off de facto relationships. That is the thing that I, as a person who works in the policy area, find quite difficult. Therefore, we will not be moving to include those matters in this bill. But I give him the absolute commitment that these issues will come up in the reviews of those pieces of legislation— particularly the one I will be involved with.

I will come later to some of the other issues that have been raised.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : Well, well, well, the ink is hardly dry on the Civil Union Act—the regulations have not yet been promulgated—and the next stage of the homosexual rights agenda is before us in the form of the proposed amendment by the Green Party, which wants to legislate to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. That was the prediction. In my minority report on the Civil Union Bill I said that it was but the beginning of the agenda, there was more to come yet. I predicted that it would not be very long before the ban on same-sex couples converting from a civil union to a marriage would be removed. Here we have yet another issue—same-sex adoption.

Classically, we see here that the Green Party is trying to pre-empt the agenda of the left in order to provide for same-sex adoption by civil union partners, for which we can read “same-sex partners”. That was predicted and it is happening already. I am surprised that it has happened so soon because the people who have been promoting the Civil Union Act and the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill have been very subtle in the way that they have advanced their cause—“incremental” is the word that gets used. So the promoters of this legislation included heterosexual couples as being eligible for civil unions because they thought that was more palatable and they did not provide for same-sex marriage per se because they did not think that would be acceptable. Instead we got this Clayton’s same-sex marriage called civil union.

But the Greens are jumping the gun, so before the ink is dry on the Civil Union Act, and before we have even passed this bill, we have the issue of same-sex adoption in our faces. In fact, what I have learnt through this process is that there is nothing in law that prevents same-sex adoption. It is a matter of policy. So it is a matter of Government policy as to whether same-sex couples are allowed to adopt. The Greens, in this amendment that would amend the Adoption Act, state: “adoptive parent means any parent who adopts a child in accordance with an adoption order; and in the case of an order made in favour of a husband and wife or of civil union partners on their joint application, means both the husband and wife or civil union partners, but does not include a spouse or partner who merely consents to an adoption”. What the Greens are asking for is to codify in law that it is quite acceptable and, indeed, to be encouraged as being of equal status, for civil union partners—namely same-sex partners—to jointly adopt children.

There is something that those 5,500 submitters who opposed the Civil Union Act and this bill—which, we should continue to remind ourselves, is 94 percent of submitters—ought to be very, very aware of. It is this: if, as the current polling seems to indicate, the Labour Party will be the largest party after the next election, there will be a stark choice to be made. Either the Green Party will be the party to support Labour or United Future will be the party to support Labour. If the Green Party and Labour get together, I will bet my bottom dollar that legislating for same-sex adoption will be at the top of the Government’s list of priorities. That will be one of the things that will be moved very quickly. It will happen by lunchtime. I can guarantee that. But I can also guarantee that if Labour and United Future are providing the majority Government in this House after the election, there will be no same-sex adoption. Here is the reason: we believe that both mothers and fathers are necessary for the effective raising of children. We believe that two mothers and two fathers do not provide the same level of stability and the same environment that children need for a nurturing upbringing.

In my second reading speech I referred to statistics that clearly show that a child needs a mother and a father. Children need a male input into their lives and they need a female input into their lives by their parents, and preferably by their natural parents. That is why we would be opposed to something that would allow children to be adopted by same-sex couples, or even by single people, because clearly the statistics also show that children who are brought up in those environments do less well on all social indices. That is not to condemn those solo parents who are faced with bringing up a child. We know that is a struggle. But even they would admit that it is a struggle.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) : I have been motivated to rise in this debate by the last contribution, which, I have to say, was somewhat bizarre. The Committee was told that if United Future can only get back in after the election, it will stop the godless Labour Party from introducing the next horrible thing, which apparently is same-sex adoptive parents. The problem I have with that is that if United Future was so good at stopping these sorts of things, why are we having this debate? Why did United Future not say to the Government 3 years ago that it would not give its support if the Government introduced the Civil Union Bill, and if it then followed it with the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill?

Dail Jones: It wasn’t their policy.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: It was the Labour Party’s policy, but I am asking this question of the United Future party. It is a mystery to me and it must be a mystery to most people who supported United Future, although very few people now admit to having done so. Those who do admit to having done so must question how it is that the United Future party can give stability to the Labour Government day in and day out, enabling the Government to introduce legislation of this sort. I think Murray Smith will have a great deal of difficulty persuading anybody that United Future will stop the Labour Government from carrying out any of its lifestyle politics. I would like to think that Mr Smith would do a bit of work on the bill and support Stephen Franks’ measure. [Interruption] I am pleased to hear that he says he will, because Stephen Franks’ measure is one that not only people like Mr Smith but also genuine liberals should support. What he is drawing to the attention of the Committee is that under the Human Rights Act as amended by this bill it will become illegal for a person who is providing services for things like civil unions—which I understand the United Future party thinks are the work of the devil—not to provide them if asked.

It seems to me that it is wrong that the Parliament of New Zealand should decide that, regardless of whether we are for or against civil union—and I voted for that legislation. If people want to make choices, they should. I will support Mr Franks’ measure because I do not think we should force people to provide services. The most dramatic example will be churches that have church halls that are let out for hire. Sometimes the church itself is let out, like the Assemblies of God church in Auckland.

Hon Member: Where is it?

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: I am talking about the church in Beaumont Street, right by the Harbour Bridge. I was invited there on Good Friday by one of our ethnic groups, which had hired it that night to listen to an Indian pop concert. Unfortunately they put me in the front row, so I was somewhat deafened. I realised that under this bill, if one wanted a rip-roaringly big civil union—because one would be inviting a lot of people to fill that church—by law that Assemblies of God church would not be able to refuse the hire request, even though it is opposed to it. That has to be wrong, and that is why I say that anyone in this Chamber who is a genuine liberal should support Mr Franks’ amendment.

If people run a bridal service with bridal cars, then under this bill they will be required to provide those cars for civil unions, even if they are members of the Destiny Church and Brian Tamaki says that they will go to hell for having done so. I say to the Committee that it is a great mistake when Parliament starts to pass measures that people of Christian persuasion think are wrong, because that is a church that believes in martyrdom and those people just will not do it. If people just will not do it, we then will find ourselves starting to penalise people all to carry out the social programme of Margaret Wilson—but we are not allowed to mention her any more—or of Helen Clark and this Labour Government who intend to enforce their particular social views on the rest of the country.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Justice) : With all due respect, I just want to put that argument to bed. Mr Franks stated that as a consequence of the enactment of the Civil Union Bill, a church could be held liable for refusing to make its church premises available for civil union ceremonies. The advice I have is that under the Human Rights Act, a discriminatory practice will not be considered unlawful if the practice constitutes a genuine justification. It is likely that the decision of a church to refuse to make its premises available for civil union ceremonies would constitute a genuine justification, as it would also be justified for a church to refuse to hire its premises to Satanists.

Matters that could be taken into account include that it may be contrary to the religious teachings of the church and may lead to tension within the church community, especially if the motives of those wishing to use its premises appeared not to be genuine; in other words, they were intended to antagonise. I would also like to make a point about something that Mr Franks mentioned—

Hon Richard Prebble: I prefer Stephen Franks because he is a better lawyer.

Hon MARIAN HOBBS: I am sure that member may well, but I am relying very much on the legal team behind me, and I am the person responsible for the Human Rights Act and the Human Rights Commission.

Mr Franks raised a question about commencement dates, and stated that there is a variety of commencement dates in the bill. There are amendments to the Care of Children Act that will come into effect on 1 July 2005, other than the amendments that will come into effect on 26 April 2005, to coincide with the commencement date for that Act, for the same reasons that amendments to the Status of Children Act will come into effect on the same day. An amendment to the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act will come into effect on 13 October 2007, to coincide with the next local body election. An amendment to the Rates Rebate Act will come into effect on 1 July 2006, as rates are set until that date. There are quite logical reasons as to why there are different commencement dates.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : Firstly, I want to respond to that pretty extraordinary contribution from Marian Hobbs, after the point that was made by Richard Prebble in support of Stephen Franks’ amendments. The Minister said to the Committee that if the intent of the person wanting to use the church was malicious or farcical, there would not be a breach of the Human Rights Act. But that was not the scenario the Hon Richard Prebble brought to the Committee. His point was that if two perfectly reasonable people wanted to have a civil union in the Destiny Church the Human Rights Commission would require the church to comply, and that is wrong.

I want to ask the Minister this. Will the Government, in its next term, provide for gay adoption? That is a fair question. We know the social agenda of the last 3 years—we know we have legislated for gay marriage, and we know we have legalised prostitution. I would just like to know from the Minister—

Jill Pettis: Is the National Party going to sell State assets?

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: That is a very good question. Last Friday, the National spokesperson gave a very clear statement as to which assets National would sell and which assets it would not sell. So I ask Jill Pettis whether the next Labour Government will provide for gay adoption—yes or no?

Jill Pettis: You’re jumping the gun on that one.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh, Jill Pettis says that I am jumping the gun, that somehow it is not right for—

Hon Richard Prebble: Jill Pettis will tell the people of Wanganui after the election.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: My colleague Richard Prebble says that Jill Pettis will tell the people of Wanganui after the election. Every member of this House—Harry Duynhoven and Marian Hobbs included—knows that if this Labour Government gets another term, gay adoption will occur. That is absolutely true.

Jill Pettis: Don’t be ridiculous!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I will bet Jill Pettis the very best bottle of Nelson wine that if Labour survives the next election we will get gay adoption. Will she take me on? Jill Pettis said I am incorrect. I am prepared to put my money where my mouth is, or on the best bottle of wine from Nelson. I will bet that member—

Darren Hughes: You’d have to go to court to get it!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I have to say that unlike that member I honour my promises. I am happy to take—[Interruption] Mr Darren Hughes interjects. Mind you, he will not be here after the election, given the very effective campaign that is being run in Otaki by a stunning candidate who will see him out, so I cannot take the bet with him. It may be that Jill Pettis might survive because Labour will save her bacon on the list. I simply ask Jill Pettis whether she will bet me a bottle of Nelson wine that a re-elected Labour Government would provide for gay adoption. Well, what about Marian Hobbs? Is it not interesting! This is part of Labour’s secret agenda. New Zealanders should know that a vote for Labour is a vote for gay adoption, and that will be the next chapter of social engineering.

What, for me, is extraordinary about the United Future party is that up and down New Zealand there have been advertisements in the newspapers saying that to fight gay marriage, people have to support the United Future party. The advertisements have a big picture of Peter Dunne.

Hon Richard Prebble: Yeah, right!

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I think Richard Prebble should take up a job as an advertising agent with Tui beer, because it would make a damn good Tui advertisement. Having spent public money on advertisements up and down the country decrying gay marriage, what did Peter Dunne then do? He voted for the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. The leader of the United Future party is voting for this bill, which states that in 168 statutes—

Hon Richard Prebble: No, that can’t be right.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I was quite dumbfounded when I checked the voting record on the first and second readings and found that Peter Dunne, the leader of the “Families First” party, voted for gay civil unions to be treated absolutely identically to marriage in respect of the law. I think the remaining supporters of United Future will find it extraordinary that the party has voted in that way.

PAUL ADAMS (United Future) : Perhaps Nick Smith would be good enough to enlighten the public on what his own leader will be voting for on the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. But I stand as a United Future member who will definitely be voting against this bill.

I think that the Human Rights Commission—and we have heard much spoken about human rights—has a lot to answer for, in respect of the condition of families in this nation. It is pleasing to see that the commission is starting to wake up in many ways to some of the errors of its ways. It is now, under the Doha Declaration on the Family, which has recently been passed by the United Nations, again beginning to uphold and to promote the institution of marriage.

I stand here as a proud father, a married man, and a grandfather, and if time permits I look forward to the day I may even be a great grandfather. But, as Pansy Wong mentioned in her speech, yes, some people do get married and choose not to have children, and that is fine. Yet when I compare that situation to that of our Minister of Conservation, whom I saw on national television expressing great concern that a particular breed of bird was not breeding, and when I think of his chosen lifestyle, I say: “Hello, what’s wrong with this picture?”.

To continue life in this country we have to have a male and a female involved in the production of children. This bill, unfortunately, sends out a very mixed message. Young children need to know what is right, what is wrong, and what is the preferred lifestyle. We will never take away from them their right to choose but, like any young trees, I believe they need to be staked as they begin to grow.

Much has been said about the ability for two women or two men to bring up a child, and there is no doubt that many such couples are capable of looking after children. But let me assure members that every child in this country needs not only the benefit of a mother and a father but also such a stable relationship, preferably, that he or she has the benefit of grandparents, and even great grandparents. I know that my own children had a 96-year-old grandmother, and when they went to visit her they had the benefit of the wisdom of her age, and of hearing stories of how life was in the old days—how frugal she was with her savings habits, and many things like that.

I stand here to esteem marriage again. I am glad the word “marriage” has not been taken out of this bill, but I am greatly concerned that for so long, as a Government, we have been taking away the promotion of marriage as a preferred institution. I believe that that is to the detriment of the families of this nation. I believe that we need to give a clear message to young people that if they make a commitment for lifetime, it is called marriage. I do not believe that there are any young ladies out there who do not dream of the day when they will be married. I have worked with many young people, and I know that they do have a desire to marry.

Jill Pettis: Ha, ha!

PAUL ADAMS: That member can laugh and mock at me. That is fine; I can take that. But I know that in reality the long-term, loving commitment that is called marriage, which is for life—till death do we part—brings a tremendous stability to children. I know that in my home, the children see that dad truly loves mum—but I do not say that others who are not married do not love each other.

I think we have watered down most of our legislation so that children no longer see the necessity of having marriage as a preferred institution, because we have muddied the waters. We have not given a clear message; we have given a mixed message. In Allan Peachey’s book, “What’s Up with Our Schools?”, he says that even in schools children are getting mixed messages from media such as television. They no longer understand what is a preferred pathway, and I believe that that is a bad mistake.

DAIL JONES (NZ First) : At the last election New Zealand First put out a Labour Party debit card, where we predicted certain things would happen during this term of office, if the Labour Party was elected to Government. We said, for example, on Labour’s debit card that Labour would legalise prostitution and soliciting. We warned the people about that, and it is exactly what has happened. We said that Labour would legislate for gay marriages. Well, that is happening too. We also said that Labour would provide further large payments for prisoners. That is happening too—$130,000 worth.

Hon Richard Prebble: You’d better look at next year’s!

DAIL JONES: All I can say is that people should watch this space for the forthcoming election, because I am absolutely sure that it will include a statement that the Labour Party will legislate for gay adoptions—[Interruption] I bet that Labour members will not say that they will do so, but we have heard it virtually by the silence of the Labour Party’s senior whip today. When she was asked by Dr Nick Smith from the National Party whether she would take a little bet on a bottle of Nelson wine as to whether the Labour Party would legislate for gay adoptions in the next term if it should ever get that opportunity, she was silent on the issue. It is a very unusual state of affairs for Jill Pettis to be silent on that particular point.

Jill Pettis: We do not make policy on the floor of Parliament.

DAIL JONES: Perhaps Labour members make their policy on some other floor, and in what state they do so I am not absolutely certain.

Hon Richard Prebble: Secret caucus meetings!

DAIL JONES: Secret caucus meetings, where only a few people who are party to Helen Clark and that coterie of lesbians and homosexuals make the decisions in these particular areas and tell the Labour Party what will happen. It is absolutely certain that the majority of the Labour Party members get no choice on these issues. They are selected on a particular basis. Apart from the Hon Taito Phillip Field, whom I must congratulate on his earlier voting on this particular bill, the Labour members have done as they have been told to do, as far as I can see. But as I say, New Zealand First predicted what would happen, and it has happened.

Of course, the history of this Labour Government is very clear. In its first term it changed the immigration rules to allow for lesbians and homosexuals to get preference to come into New Zealand. That was in the immigration regulations, and I took it up, without success, at the Regulations Review Committee. We have seen what the Government has done in the prostitution legislation and the civil union legislation, and what it will do in the forthcoming adoption legislation. Even in the civil union legislation Labour members are legislating in favour of single homosexuals and single lesbians. Those people can still get the single person’s rate on their social welfare benefits, whereas if one is in a de facto heterosexual relationship one gets paid at the married couple’s rate. So despite rushing everything through Labour still prefers, and give favours to, single homosexuals and single lesbians in this bill. Those members just cannot stop themselves from doing that, and that is made very clear in the legislation.

This Parliament should be setting decent standards for families and for other areas of society, as well—we should be setting standards overall. But that is not occurring under this Labour Government, propped up by the United Future party. Although I have the greatest respect for Paul Adams and Murray Smith in terms of their views, if one is going to be a Christian one should be a Christian. I was asked at the last election what I would do if it came to a question of Christian values. My answer was very simple. “I am going to Parliament. I am going to Caesar’s court, and I’ll do what was said in the Gospel: when you’re shown the coin with Caesar’s head on it you give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and you give unto God what is God’s.” Well, I am in Caesar’s court here, and I know that, but I will try to do what is right as well as I can—unlike the United Future members, who said they would do the Christian thing, and of course, have done only what Caesar wants. Caesar, in the name of Peter Dunne and Helen Clark, has told them what to do, and they have conformed with Caesar’s law, despite the fact that before the election they said they would do things in the Christian way.That is obvious to anyone who has the slightest understanding of the matter. United Future members have the cheek to say that when they are returned at the next election they will stand up for Christian values. They have had 3 years in which to prove that, and, regrettably, Christian values have taken a savage beating all the time that the United Future party has been in this House. All the things that have been passed have been passed only because United Future has propped up this Labour Government.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : The last comments from New Zealand First showed its desperation, and its lack of potency in being able to do anything during this term of Government. That is a situation that is very likely to continue in the next term.

I will support Stephen Franks’ amendment, and some of my colleagues will support it, also. Once again, it has come from Stephen Franks, unfortunately, at late notice—only today—but because there will be a conscience vote, we will fortunately have some flexibility in being able to do that. Sadly, others are away from the Chamber and we will not be able to get their proxy votes in time. If Stephen Franks had given us a bit more notice we might have been able to provide a bit more support.

Same-sex relationships are regarded by many New Zealanders as being wrong. The Human Rights Act provides instead that the people who believe that same-sex relationships are wrong, are wrong. That turning-over of what is reality, is what is wrong with the legislation. The Human Rights Act turns those people who believe one thing into the ones at fault, because they believe that the other thing is wrong.

Most New Zealanders accept that people’s personal choices are theirs to make, so are very accepting of those choices, including the choice to be homosexual. However, when those choices impact on other people’s freedoms, and in particular on the freedoms of others to be able to disagree with those points of view and to act accordingly, that is where things really get turned upside down and go quite wrong.

In terms of the specific provision, where Stephen Franks is looking to remove marital status as a form of discrimination, I concur with my colleague Paul Adams in relation to the Doha Declaration on the Family that the United Nations recently passed, which specifically spells out that States should encourage and promote marriage. How can one encourage and promote marriage without, at the same time, suggesting that marriage is a preferable form to other forms of relationship—and in that respect to provide discrimination?

The United Nations is really starting to turn around in terms of its attitude towards those issues of human rights, and I think it is time our country did as well. It is really a tragedy, and an indictment on this Government, that we were one of the very few countries that was not prepared to support that Doha declaration. That shows how liberal we are in the face of most Western countries and, indeed, probably all Eastern countries.

The key point I shall address at this time is the definition of de facto and the changes made by the Justice and Electoral Committee. I believe that the committee got this horribly wrong, and that its rationale at the end of the day really does not make sense. It has tried to correct a different problem from the one that it thought it was correcting.

It seems to me that once again this is something the Greens have been pushing for. The changes were at very late notice. Similarly, with the Civil Union Bill, the proposed clauses stating that the intention of civil unions was to provide for exclusive, lifelong relationships were removed, and that seemed to have been a requirement of the Greens for providing their support. Once again, the late notice about that—the fact that those changes were made at the eleventh hour in the committee without much warning and after we had debated the alternative for a lengthy period of time—suggests to me that that there was a Green initiative. In particular, the Green speech tonight seems to reinforce that.

Clause 40(4), as it was in the bill, was effectively a very good measure. It codified the way the common law had been going. Contrary to what Sue Bradford said, the courts had never said that that was a check list; in fact, they had said the opposite. They said that the criteria set out in what was clause 40(4) were not to be regarded as a check list but merely as a list of factors. The clause stated, before it was struck out by the select committee: “In determining whether 2 persons live together as a couple, all the circumstances of the relationship are to be taken into account, including any of the following matters that are relevant in a particular case: (a) the duration of the relationship: (b) the nature and extent of common residence: (c) whether or not a sexual relationship exists: (d) the degree of financial independence or interdependence, and any arrangements for financial support, between the parties: (e) the ownership, use, and acquisition of property: (f) the degree of mutual commitment to a shared life: (g) the care and support of children:” and “(h) the performance of household duties:”.

That is where Australian and New Zealand case law had got to. That is where courts were when looking for consistency, when asking how they ensured that their decisions were consistent one with another in being asked to judge whether a relationship was a de facto relationship. When the courts ask how they can be consistent from one judgment to another they will inevitably develop their own factors to be taken into account, as a guideline for future cases. So the fact that the select committee has not put that subclause in the bill will not stop the courts from using it. The pity though is that we then wasted an opportunity of taking the numerous cases there have been, and of codifying the direction the courts had come to.

The select committee said it wanted to take out that codification, those guidelines, and instead to say, under clause 40(2), that a de facto relationship is a “relationship between two people … who—“(a) live together as a couple in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union; and (b) are not married to, or in a civil union with, each other; and (c) are both aged 16 years or older.” The committee wanted to insert a provision to say that in determining whether two people lived together as a couple, then the court in determining the question must have regard to the context or the purpose of the law in which the question is to be determined in the circumstances of the relationship.

The committee’s justification for doing that was because it felt that in different situations and under different legislation there would be de facto relationships in some instances and not in others. It said that in some instances the law casts a wide net, for example, to ensure that declarations of conflict of interest capture all parties, and in other instances, with regard to the changing of rights or vesting of property, courts can require that those are enacted in ways that usually require a conscious decision to take up those rights or obligations.

So the committee is saying that in the context of this specific legislation one needs to determine that in one context this is a de facto relationship, but that it may or may not be a de facto relationship with regard to any other piece of legislation. Should the question arise, for example, of whether a partner should be able to sign a cremation certificate if he or she is in a de facto relationship, the courts will say that they will have to look at the context of the bill and the context of the relationship before they can determine whether the relationship is a de facto relationship. To see whether a partner in a de facto relationship has a right to receive benefits like the Government Superannuation Fund, we have to look at the Act and look at that particular relationship.

What should be happening is that the courts should be allowed to determine that a de facto relationship exists, but then to ask what terms of the relationship were agreed upon, rather than making a decision and saying that for the purpose of this legislation it is a de facto relationship, and for the purpose of that legislation it is not. That will leave a wholly confused situation. Not only will we be caught, but people like Government Superannuation Fund trustees, or whatever board that makes decisions as to whether grants should be had, will also have to go through the process. They cannot rely, for example, on a court determination that a de facto relationship exists in a particular case, because not only is that particular declaration not binding, it is not relevant to whether it exists with regard to the Government Superannuation Fund.

Instead of looking at whether there is a de facto relationship, we should be considering the substance and extent of the relationship, so that the courts can say: “Yes, there is a de facto relationship, but there was no agreement to share financial resources, and therefore the social welfare provisions should not apply to it.”—that is what Ruka tried to do—or the courts can say: “Yes, there’s a de facto relationship, but there was no intention between the parties to allow Government superannuation benefits to be passed on in terms of all the circumstances, and therefore the terms of the relationship should not allow for Government superannuation benefits to be passed on.”; or “Yes, there’s a de facto relationship, but it was not intended that the other party should make decisions in regard to cremation. Therefore, the de facto relationship terms do not include that.” It is not a question of whether it is a de facto relationship—

• Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

MURRAY SMITH: In summary, I say that the select committee has effectively removed the ability of courts or of any other persons to define whether a de facto relationship actually exists, because whether it exists depends on the particular legislation that is being looked at. Depending on that legislation it will be deemed to be a de facto relationship for some purposes, and it will not be a de facto relationship for others.

The select committee, by majority, said in the commentary on the bill: “Although this leaves a degree of uncertainty, most of us believe that the ability to tailor the definition to the purpose of the law is preferable to courts struggling to stretch a common definition across a variety of contexts.” So we will get into situations where we will not know whether a person is legally in a de facto relationship, at all. People may be in de facto relationships for the purpose of one bill; they will not be in a de facto relationship for the purpose of another bill.

What should have happened is that the original clause 40(5) should have stated that in determining whether a particular statute applied, the intentions of the parties in the de facto relationship should have been given prominence.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : I rise on behalf of the Green Party to support the amendments in the name of Nandor Tanczos. They are quite common-sense amendments. I think there was an argument from the Minister that because the Adoption Act and the Citizenship Act are not otherwise dealt with in the bill, they should not be included in it and the amendments should not be put. But I think it is incumbent on us to be consistent in advancing to those in civil unions the same rights that exist for married couples in relation to adoption and to the special provisions for spouses to gain citizenship.

I know the Minister’s viewpoint is that there will be reviews of those Acts, and that is fair enough. There are reviews and changes in Acts all the time, and it is good that those reviews are coming up. However, for something as straightforward as this, where all that we are doing is extending to civil union partners the same rights to adopt children that married couples have, then why should we not put that in the bill? There may be objection to that, and perhaps it is the objection I hear coming from my left, from the United Future members, that this means same-sex partners in a civil union will be able to adopt children. It may be they have some objection to that. If they wish to they can object to that, but it is not a view shared by the Green Party or, I think, by most people in our society, who want more equality and want adoptive children to be brought up in loving and caring partnerships, which civil union partnerships will be.

In terms of citizenship rights, if the Minister has discretion under the Citizenship Act to treat the spouse of a New Zealand citizen with some preference in terms of gaining citizenship, then that should apply not only to married couples and the married spouse of a New Zealander, but also to the civil union spouse of a New Zealander. That is straightforward.

Murray Smith: Civil union spouse?

KEITH LOCKE: A civil union spouse or partner; whichever term the member wishes to use.

I agree with the idea of holding off the extension of the provisions in this bill to de facto relationships, in large part. I am in a de facto relationship myself, and although my own relationship may be well established—it is 25 years old—there are people in de facto relationships who have relationships of a shorter time and who do not necessarily want to be treated entirely as married couples or civil union couples. So I support the tenor of the bill to tread a bit carefully in extending all the legal provisions to de facto couples, or we could end up with a situation where people are scared of going into any de facto relationship for fear of consequences that they do not know about.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) : I am very pleased to be able to follow on from Keith Locke. I read with interest the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Nandor Tanczos. Initially, I have to record two things. Firstly, Nandor Tanczos is a very valued and trusted member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, and it would have been very helpful if he had put these issues forward at the select committee stage as it would have enabled us to have had a fuller look at the proposals. Secondly, a principle was very clearly laid out both in the work of the select committee—it certainly was not challenged at that stage—and in the commentary on the bill that has arisen from the select committee. The principle was that legislation that is currently under review should quite properly be dealt with through that review process. That applies to both pieces of legislation to which this Supplementary Order Paper refers.

We have engaged in an extensive consultation process on the Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill. The adoption law reform process has gone back for years. I have been on the select committee that has twice considered issues arising out of the Law Commission consideration of adoption. At the end of the day we had a split outcome from that committee. The official report was anodyne, but Government members were very supportive, among many other things, of applying human rights standards to adoption. Currently that process is back in the Government machine and at some stage it will emerge. I think that is absolutely the proper place to deal with issues of adoption.

It is not only these two pieces of legislation. The Lawyers and Conveyancers Bill, which has just completed its second reading in the House, also contains measures that are not in the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill that are concerned with applying equal rights in terms of relationships. Insolvency legislation, securities legislation reform, and a number of other law reform processes are under way. Indeed, the Wills Act 1837 (UK), which is the one difference between marriage legislation and civil union legislation—it does not include civil unions—is currently part of the Law Commission’s examination of succession law, and therefore, again, we decided not to add civil unions to that. We have had a quite consistent approach in the select committee, and for that reason, certainly, I urge the Committee not to accept the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Nandor Tanczos.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) : On behalf of National, or perhaps I should say more appropriately, on behalf of myself because this is a conscience vote, I would like to speak to the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill in the Committee stage. This, of course, is our opportunity to look clause by clause at particular parts of the bill. In this case we are talking only about two parts. Part 1 is concerned with a raft of statutory changes and Part 2 is concerned with a raft of changes to regulations. I am not wrong in saying “raft of changes” because the scope of this legislation in terms of the changes to be made to our statutory and regulatory regimes is, indeed, breathtaking.

Others have said, and I simply repeat, that this bill is really about two things. It gives legal effect to civil unions but much more significantly, in the context of the Government’s determined social engineering anti-family plans, it takes the view that all relationships should be protected—marriages, civil unions, and de facto relationships.

In this particular call, which I hope will be the forerunner of many more calls that will be able to be taken by National Party members on Part 1, I want to concentrate on de facto relationships. It is easy to say when a marriage starts. It is easy to say when a civil union relationship starts. It is much more difficult in the case of de facto relationships. Is it the first furtive hand-holding in the darkened picture theatre or is it some later active sexual coitus that enables those who must make these judgments to say: “We have a de facto relationship under way.”?

I always thought it was helpful to provide some indicia as to what a de facto relationship might be, and although I condemn this bill for what it seeks to do, and, in particular, for its anti-family stance, when it was initially introduced it postulated some indicia to determine whether, in fact, a de facto relationship existed. In the development of those indicia there was help gained from what had gone on in other countries in a similar task of search and also, of course, in what was already contained in some New Zealand statutory material.

So the sorts of things that one would expect might be looked at to determine whether a de facto relationship has sprung up include duration of the relationship, nature and extent of common residence, whether a sexual relationship existed, degree of financial dependence or interdependence, ownership of property, degree of mutual commitment to a shared life, care and support of children, and performance of household duties. Now, all that has been swept away by this determined Justice and Electoral Committee majority membership, to provide instead, it is said, a more simple test, but a more simple test that will, in reality, be hugely hard to apply. Now a de facto relationship means a relationship between two people, whether a man and a woman, a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, who live together as a couple in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union.

What we are seeing, of course, is very much part of determined Government policy, and that is to blur these concepts. It is all being done in a very deliberately anti-family way. There is to be a much degraded significance in terms of the difference between a relationship in the nature of marriage, a relationship in the nature of civil union, and a relationship that might be called a de facto relationship. Whereas it might be quite reasonable to fix rights and responsibilities in respect of marriage and civil union, it is far more difficult, assuming one can establish the status of a de facto relationship, to do so in the context of that latter relationship. That is because people enter into de facto relationships for a real mix of reasons, ranging from companionship, to love, to simply transient convenience.

Hon MARK BURTON (Acting Leader of the House) : I move, That the question be now put.

CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) : I particularly want to address this part of the bill. Earlier on I heard Stephen Franks put up an argument for his Supplementary Order Paper and on hearing it I felt compelled to support it—that is, if what he was saying was true.

Hon Richard Prebble: Of course it’s true.

CRAIG McNAIR: Of course it is true. I would not want to question the member’s integrity. I have had a chance to look at the Supplementary Order Paper and am convinced I should be voting for it. After looking at the bill, I am very convinced that I should vote against it. I am a bit puffed because I have been trying to round up as many colleagues as I possibly can to vote for the Supplementary Order Paper. In listening to the debate earlier on, I was made well aware that if this bill goes through, and if we do not support this Supplementary Order Paper in repealing a paragraph from section 21 of the Human Rights Act, then, for example, a taxi-driver would not be able to turn down passengers who had just been through a civil union ceremony, that is as I understand it.

Hon Marian Hobbs: Incorrect, as was explained.

CRAIG McNAIR: The Minister is saying that is correct.

Hon Mark Burton: Incorrect.

CRAIG McNAIR: Well, as far as I can understand, if a church did not want—

Dr Richard Worth: Correct.

CRAIG McNAIR: I have a well-educated lawyer member sitting behind me saying that I am correct. For example, even if a church disagreed with the whole idea of civil unions, and it is entitled by law to disagree with that, if a civil unionised couple wanted to hold a reception in the church hall after their civil union, even if the church disagreed with it and did not want them to have it in the church hall, it would not be able to turn them down. It would be in breach of the law. That is my understanding of it and what I heard earlier on. That is what I believe to be true.

This Government is denying what I am alleging tonight as far as what I have just said about a civil union ceremony and a taxi-driver, for example, not wanting to carry a civil unionised couple after their ceremony or reception because he or she philosophically disagrees with it, and that driver then being in breach of the law. I would not put it past this Government, even though it is denying it, that this is the fact.

We have a Government that wants an inquiry into hate speech. As soon as the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Prohibition of Child Pornography) Bill sponsored by Anne Tolley a few years ago failed—I think it was the day afterwards—the committee at the time, which was a Government-dominated committee, decided to undertake an inquiry into hate speech laws along with the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act. Then when we had an election in 2002 the new committee, which was still obviously a Government-dominated committee, decided to continue or I guess officially reinstate that inquiry into hate speech its ultimate aim will be to stop freedom of expression.

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : I want to comment on, or ask the Minister to explain, one of the amendments proposed in Supplementary Order Paper 333 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope. There is a reference to clause 46 and to a schedule that changes parts of the Marriage Act. Reference is made to the terms “stepfather” and “stepmother”. The Justice and Electoral Committee very sensibly, I think, when looking at the cumbersome words being used to try to express the concepts of “stepfather” and “stepmother” in a whole raft of Acts, decided that they were perfectly serviceable terms that everyone understood, that the English language had evolved them over a very long time, and that in statutes it was easy to read them and to know what was and was not being referred to. So the committee decided to reinstate those words in a whole lot of places where there was a proposal that they be replaced with a whole lot of more politically correct words.

That, I think, may not have been completed and it might be the explanation for the Hon David Benson-Pope’s amendment to stick the terms back into the Marriage Act; and, if so, I could support it. But what I am not clear about is why, in the same Supplementary Order Paper, we are touching the Care of Children Act and that has not been similarly amended.

At the select committee we had prepared all the amendments that would be required to ensure that the Care of Children Act was once more easy to read in this respect—that it referred to the well-understood concepts of stepfather and stepmother—then at the very last minute, in fact I think it might have been the last day before deliberation, the officials came to the committee and said: “No, we don’t want to do that because our computer program for the forms would have to be changed.” It would be fair to say that the majority of members on the committee said: “Well, that seems to be a bit of an odd reason to afflict our law with a myriad of incomprehensible jargon words, politically correct words, when we could just use ‘stepfather’ and ‘stepmother’, and wouldn’t the forms look better if they were made more simple with ‘stepfather’ and ‘stepmother’?”. There was a gap to allow the officials to go back and consult, and it appears that they got instructions from the Minister that, no, they wanted to stick with their politically correct forms and obscure wording instead of “stepfather” and “stepmother”.

At that stage the committee had a clear chance. I can tell members that the committee divided clearly on party lines. The Labour members did as they were bidden by the Minister, and we find that the care of children legislation does not have the words “stepfather” and “stepmother”. All the other legislation that this committee touched does, but the reason the care of children legislation does not is that the officials, apparently, would need to change their computer so that it does not have all the gobbledygook jargon words that are in there now instead of using a simple old term.

Hon Richard Prebble: Good grief, political correctness run riot!

STEPHEN FRANKS: It is political correctness to the point where the officials ruled the Labour members of the committee.

Hon Richard Prebble: Did anyone consult stepfathers and stepmothers?

STEPHEN FRANKS: They will not recognise themselves in the words that will be there instead. They will be totally baffled and will need a lawyer to know what it means. We had a sense of, once again, members of Parliament having the right instincts but not enough courage to stand up against the political correctness that infuses the public service they have set in train. I do not think we can blame the officials. They have been told to go out—

Hon Richard Prebble: They’re running amok.

STEPHEN FRANKS: They are running amok, but they have been told to do it by the Minister. They have been told to go out there and purge the language of things that people can understand and, instead, to fill it with legal gobbledygook. We had a committee that got up the courage to say: “No, we won’t do that.”—with great trepidation, I have to say—until the last day, when one of the Ministers came back and said that oh yes we would, through officials. The explanation was not because it was a sensible thing, or because anyone wants to see the terms “stepfather” and “stepmother” gone—other than those who are directing this political correctness campaign from wherever the heart of it lurks in the Labour Cabinet—the excuse was: “We don’t want to reprogram the computer with simple words. The computers are all ready to churn out forms with very long words.”

GEORGINA BEYER (Labour—Wairarapa) : I move, That the question be now put.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (ACT) : I was motivated to seek the call after the last contribution. As a stepfather, I had not realised that this bill was writing me out of the Care of Children Act and that even a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee no longer knows how I am supposed to be described.

Stephen Franks: I couldn’t tell you.

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: He could not tell me. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us. The explanation given to the Committee is so extraordinary that I am sure it is correct: the officials have programed me into the computer under a new name, and it would cost them too much to take it out. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a stepfather or a stepmother. Who on earth are those people who are deciding that they can make this assault on our language and on our values? Which Government member, last election, got up in a campaign hall and said that by the way, Labour was going to abolish the terms “stepfather” and “stepmother”?

Peter Brown: I’m a stepfather. Am I abolished?

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: Apparently, he is.

Murray Smith: And the sooner the better!

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE: He is now told by United Future that the sooner the better.

I believe that the Ministry of Justice is running amok. I do not think the Minister has a total grip on what the department is doing. I have noticed that no matter which party is in Government, the department puts forward its politically correct views. I am told that at the select committee, even when members of Parliament said they represented ordinary New Zealanders and would like to make some changes to the bill, the officials came back to the select committee and continued to argue for their politically correct views. Whom do they think they represent? How do they have the right to do that?

I ask the Government when it got a mandate for this change. We hear from the United Future members that they will stop Labour from making it after the election. I say yeah, right, just like they were going to stop it from having gay marriage! I ask the Committee and the United Future member who was speaking just before the break—who went through some elaborate talk about how the courts should decide de facto relationships—what business or right is it of any Government, if two adults decide not to use the legal provisions for marriage, and now for civil union, then to decide to impose legal obligations upon them? The only reason for that can be that we think those people are not capable of making their own decisions. Well, the law is quite clear. If we want to make decisions on behalf of our partner, we had better marry him or her or have a civil union.

I am staggered to see the United Future members get up and make these arguments on behalf of de facto couples, and say that there ought to be some sort of legal relationship. Indeed, I am amazed that Peter Dunne is voting for this bill. As I say, I voted for the Civil Union Bill. If people want to have a civil union, they can have it. But I am absolutely voting against these measures, which say to people who have chosen not to marry and not to have a civil union, that despite that they will be regarded as being married. These are Margaret Wilson sorts of marriages—oh, no, she is now the Speaker; well, whoever it is in the Government. Actually, I think it is the Ministry of Justice officials who think we in this Parliament know better than couples and should impose legal responsibilities on people who happen to live together. I say we have absolutely no moral right to do that—none whatsoever. If people do not want to be in those legal relationships, where is our moral authority to impose that upon them? If they ought to have them—and I think that two adults living together who have children ought to have proper legal relationships—then what is wrong with marriage? If they do not like marriage, for goodness’ sake we have now given them a civil union.

There is no moral right whatsoever to do what is in this bill, and how the leader of the United Future party, who says he is favour of family values, can be voting for this measure, which seems to me to be absolutely opposed to everything I have seen in that party’s newspaper advertisements, is just beyond me. However, I do understand how United Future can claim to be a broad church party—it covers the whole spectrum.

DAVE HEREORA (Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) : I seek leave to have Nandor Tanczos’ amendments put during this vote. There was an objection from the Chair to this course of action.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I think that we have now agreed that they will be put.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. My understanding is that because those amendments seek to alter Acts that are not part of the bill and not included in it, they are outside the scope of the bill and can be put only if the leave of the Committee is granted. On that basis, I believe that leave should be sought by the member to put them.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): I have taken further advice on the matter and on the new subparts proposed by Nandor Tanczos. The purpose of the bill is to give legal effect to the Civil Union Act. Amendments that insert the words “civil union” and/or “civil union partners” are of the nature of consequential amendments. Standing Order 302(1) puts in place a restriction on law reform bills of this nature. It requires the leave of the Committee to make a substantive amendment to an Act not amended in the bill as introduced. These amendments are not substantive in nature; they merely insert words necessary to give effect to the Civil Union Act. They are consequential to the purpose of this bill and they do not introduce substantive new material. Leave is not required for the Committee to consider these amendments. If members do not support the amendments, they should vote against them.

LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) : I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I just seek clarification. As there is a conscience vote on Supplementary Order Papers and on the bill, my understanding is that this should also be a conscience, or personal, vote, and that we should be proceeding not with a party vote but with a conscience vote. I call for a personal vote to be cast.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): A personal vote will be held.

• The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Nandor Tanczos be agreed to:

to insert, after clause 11, the following new subpart:

Subpart 1AA—Amendments to Adoption Act 1955

11AAAdoption Act 1955 called principal act in this subpart

In this subpart, the Adoption Act 1955, is called “the principal Act.”

11ABInterpretation

Section 2 of the principal Act is amended by repealing the definition of adoptive parent, and substituting the following definition:

“adoptive parent means any person who adopts a child in accordance with an adoption order; and in the case of an order made in favour of a husband and wife or of civil union partners on their joint application, means both the husband and wife or civil union partners, but does not include a spouse or partner who merely consents to an adoption”.

11ACPower to make adoption orders

(1)Section 3(2) of the principal Act is amended by inserting, after the word “spouses”, the words “or civil union partners”.

(2)Section 3(3) of the principal Act is amended by inserting, after the word “spouse”, the words “or civil union partner”.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : I seek the leave of the House to amend a vote in regard to new Subpart 1AA, an amendment in the name of Nandor Tanczos, to record the vote by proxy against it of Gordon Copeland, which was inadvertently omitted.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): There appears to be no objection. That will be recorded.

• The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 333 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to Part 1 be agreed to.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Part 2 includes debate on schedules 13A, 14, and 15.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) : In talking to Part 2, I note that there are some comprehensive schedules in terms of amendments to regulations that demonstrate the sort of thing I was saying in my principal speech about the difficulty and confusion that will arise in regard to not defining what a de facto relationship is. It starts with the definition in the provision that the Justice and Electoral Committee has added in clause 40, which inserts a new section 29A into the Interpretation Act. The new section 29A states that: “(5) In determining whether 2 people live together as a couple in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union, the court or person required to determine the question must have regard to—(a) the context, or the purpose of the law, in which the question is to be determined; and (b) all the circumstances of the relationship.” In my view, the comment on the “context, or the purpose of the law, in which the question is to be determined;” will create huge uncertainty and a lot of confusion, particularly because it is not just the way that the courts will interpret the clause, but it is also which “court or person” will be required to determine it.

As we look at some of the regulations in schedule 15, we can see exactly what the consequences of the provision will be. How do we define the “context, or the purpose of the law,”? In the Alcoholism and Drug Addiction (Forms) Regulations there is provision for a de facto partner to sign a form that enables treatment of people who are afflicted with alcoholism or drug addiction. How can we say whether a relationship is a de facto relationship in the context of that legislation? Would we ask whether it is the alcoholic partner’s intention that his or her spouse may sign such a form? That is problematic in itself, because it may well be that the alcoholic partner is not happy about such a form being signed. So how do we determine whether, in the context of that legislation, it was part of the purpose of that couple’s de facto relationship that that right should be given to the de facto partner? That is the problem that we find ourselves with.

To take another example, in the Cremation Regulations, a de facto partner can sign a certificate to enable his or her partner’s body to be cremated. How do we determine whether, in the context of the Cremation Regulations, the parties were in a de facto relationship? What does that mean? In order to sign the certificate, the partner has to prove somehow that for the purposes of that legislation, the parties were in a de facto relationship. One of the problems we have for a start is that obviously the de facto partner has died and, therefore, is not able to make a comment as to whether he or she would have been happy for the other partner to sign a consent form for his or her body to be cremated. But what does it mean in that context? How does the court determine that the relationship was the sort of de facto relationship that would have enabled the certificate to be signed? What does it mean to state that one is a de facto partner for the purposes of the Cremation Regulations, but that one is not a de facto partner for the purpose of other things? For some things one is a de facto partner and for some things one is not.

When we look at the Government Superannuation Fund Regulations, there is the situation where the partner of a deceased contributor may receive a financial benefit if that person was in a de facto relationship. Under the new section 29A(5), that means that the person was openly in a de facto relationship in the context of the Government Superannuation Fund legislation. So how do we determine whether someone was in a de facto relationship? In this instance, the Government Superannuation Fund Authority has to determine whether a de facto relationship existed in that context. How will that happen? The new regulation 3(c) of the Government Superannuation Fund Regulations, inserted by schedule 15, states that the determination will be based on “… such evidence as the Government Superannuation Fund Authority may in its discretion require …”, but there are no guidelines.

What sort of guidelines will there be? The authority cannot even state that where the person has been declared to have been a de facto partner for the purpose of some other legislation, or where the social welfare authorities recognise the person as being in a de facto relationship, the authority can take that on board, because the legislation, as changed by the Justice and Electoral Committee, states that that consideration is irrelevant. It is the context of the Government Superannuation fund legislation that will apply in determining whether a de facto relationship exists.

The Health (Immunisation) Regulations require, among other things, a de facto partner to advise the school about the immunisation of a child. If a so-called de facto partner does not do that, and somebody comes along and says that the partner has contradicted the requirement to advise the school, will the partner then say that he or she is not in a de facto relationship for the purpose of those regulations? This legislation is a farce, and it will cause a huge waste of time and money for the courts.

PANSY WONG (National) : I was struggling while flicking through a lot of these schedules. I took a call in the debate on Part 1 to say that the fact that de facto relationships were also introduced into the Property (Relationships) Act a few years back has quite complicated the present legislation. I was looking at the amendments to the Social Security Act in the schedules. We have started to introduce terms like “single” instead of using “unmarried”. I invite the Minister in the chair, Marian Hobbs, to take a call about the subtlety of using words like “single” rather than “unmarried”. Why does it need to be defined in that context? In an earlier schedule we have the term “woman alone”.

In order to ease my mind, since I am supporting this legislation, I feel responsible for ensuring that the technical amendments in the schedules are useful, and necessary for making sure that the legislation will work in the way it is intended. I want to make sure that no Government department will be confused because of the various terminology in use in these schedules.

I think it would be helpful for the Minister to take a call to explain to the public the difference between “woman alone”, “unmarried”, and “single”, why it matters, and how all those different terms that have been replaced in various legislation, like the Social Security Act, would need to be interpreted. I think that Parliament has a responsibility to make sure that numerous schedules of this type have the assurance of the Minister that all the i’s have been dotted and all the t’s have been crossed. After all, on previous occasions during the flurry of schedules, when everyone thought that there was nothing but technical amendments, invariably we have found that omissions happened by sleight of hand and suddenly Parliament was called back to put through amendments.

On a personal level, I am sure the public will share with me my feeling that it is interesting that we are looking at this legislation, which is quite controversial, because large sections of the community have misgivings about same-gender union and about the fact that we complicate the issue by having the State impose rights and obligations on de facto relationships. So I ask whether terminology like “single” replacing “unmarried” and “woman alone” causes added complications. I think the Minister in the debate on Part 2, which the Committee has just finished, demonstrated a willingness to give an explanation to the public. She said that she does not want to engage in debate on the pros and cons of relationships, but she is happy to explain, where the public is entitled to be reassured, that, in effect, all these schedules are amended appropriately and correctly. Once again, I voice my objection to the State interfering in de facto relationships as well as in marriage and civil unions.

CRAIG McNAIR (NZ First) : In speaking to Part 2 of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, I say to the Committee that the Labour Government, which is passing this legislation tonight, should be upfront. It should be upfront not only with this Committee but also with the people of New Zealand, and I make that challenge to it. Labour members should be honest with the people of New Zealand and tell them that this is not the final objective in the Government’s long list of social engineering objectives, but is just the beginning. This is just the start. A Labour member over there is screwing up her face, but she knows that is true. The Government should be honest with the people of New Zealand and this Committee, and should say what its real agenda is. The Government, whatever its plan is, should at least be honest with the people of New Zealand. It should say that last year it passed a gay marriages bill—basically “civil union” is the same thing—and the Prostitution Reform Bill, and now it is passing the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill.

That has all happened at the same time as the Government is being kept afloat by United Future, which campaigned on the basis of family values, as one of my respected colleagues always says. He says that United Future is not just the family party but is the Clayton’s family party. The United Future members say they stand for families, but, when it comes down to actually standing for policies that support traditional family values, they are not there. They tell this Parliament that they will continue to vote for this Government and keep it afloat right up to the next election. That is what they say, and that is what they are doing. United Future puts advertisements in the newspapers week in, week out, month in, month out, stating that it stands for family values, when the leader and the deputy leader, who are pictured in those advertisements—

Murray Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. We can take a little bit of criticism of United Future, but for the member to devote his whole speech to such criticism is way beyond the scope of this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Yes.

CRAIG McNAIR: I am speaking to this part, and in particular I am speaking to clause 93, as far as the interpretation of the bill is concerned. I just want to say, before I specifically get on to another clause of the bill, that before I was interrupted I was saying that one has the leader and the deputy leader of United Future shown on those advertisements as standing for family values, but both of them voted for the first reading of this bill.

I say that when we are debating a bill such as this and speaking to parts such as Part 2, we should be upfront and honest with the people of New Zealand and say that they are implementing clauses 92A, 93, 94, 95, and 96, but that we have other intentions as well. The point I am making is that the parties that support this Government should be upfront and honest with the people of New Zealand.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : I rise to debate Part 2. This bill changes around 100 other Acts to give meaning to the Civil Union Bill that was passed before Christmas. Part 2 is a very small part that amends regulations. Part 1 was the amendments to other Acts, and the regulations that are amended in this Part 2—it is only about one page long—are the Family Courts Rules and the Property (Relationships) Forms Regulations. Members will remember that the Property (Relationships) Act was the Act that replaced the Matrimonial Property Act. It was the Hon Margaret Wilson’s gift to New Zealand in 2002 when the status of de factos was made, in her claim, clear, when she extended the rights of matrimonial property to de factos. The regulations we are looking at here are the regulations that implement part of the Property (Relationships) Act that came into force in 2002.

What the bill does is remind us of what has not been changed in the property relationships law. These changes are essentially mechanical. They insert “civil union partner” wherever one sees “partner” or “spouse”. Previously, of course, in that bill alongside “spouse” we had added in “de facto”. So it means that the Property (Relationships) Forms Regulations now include “spouse”, “civil union partner”, and “de facto partner”.

This bill should have been removing—if the Justice and Electoral Committee had had the courage to carry through the scheme of what it did when it got this bill—the references to “de facto” in much of the Property (Relationships) Act and regulations. We should have been acknowledging that there was a big mistake made in 2001. The term “civil union partner” should have stood alongside “marriage partner” once the decision was made by Parliament in December. But “de facto” should have been treated as quite different for the purpose of the Property (Relationships) Act. The Property (Relationships) Act should have gone back to being something that people could freely opt into if they wished, but not something that people were opted into without consent or without even knowing it, by the Government.

Alternatively, this part of the bill could have tried to have a better definition of “de facto”. If de facto couples were going to be compulsorily married so that they had to share their property, the bill could have tried to sort out the kinds of de facto or the types of de facto relationships where sharing might be what the parties would reasonably expect. For example, this might have related to couples who lived together for 3 years, and where the party with the assets had either not expressly said they did not want it to happen, or the party without the assets was the one who was responsible for the children. At the moment it can probably cost up to $2,000—the Law Society told us $600 per person, but somewhere between $1,000 and $2000—to opt out of the automatic property sharing in the Property (Relationships) Act.

I think this part amends the forms that were supposed to represent a very simple standard form contract to allow people just to look up the regulations, sign that contract, and have the opt-out done. Well, that was sabotaged by the Minister and the officials in the Ministry of Justice. When that form of simple contract was drafted, it did not achieve the objective. In fact, it was drafted in a way to negate what the committee had intended. I think I ought to know what the committee intended, because it was my idea in the committee, and I have to say that I feel embarrassed by the way it was implemented. I should have realised how bloody-minded the Minister would be about that particular part of the Act.

It was a simple concept that competent adults can be deemed to know what they want, and if they want to share their property as married people, then we would take them to mean sharing when they got married, and now when they enter into a civil union, but that when they entered into a de facto relationship they were deliberately intending not to take on the property consequences of marriage. What the form in the regulations for opt-out should then have provided was a simple form to fill out to confirm that. If we had to have the automatic deeming, then we should have had very straightforward opting out. We do not.

The position should have been the same for married couples who wanted to retain their financial independence. Though there is nothing untoward in treating people getting married or entering into a civil union as if they are choosing to share their property and their assets from the date of their marriage, equally, as adults, it should not require them to have to go along to lawyers and get lawyers to certify that they know what they are doing if they sign a simple and straightforward form to the contrary set out in the regulations to the Act.Well, they cannot do that. They still have to get lawyers and the lawyers will tell them that the form is so rudimentary that it would not be worth using. The lawyers will tell them also that the Property (Relationships) Act allows the court to second-guess them. It allows the court to decide that things have changed and that all bets are off. It allows people to renege on their deals when they may even be the only thing that reassured a party enough to let them get married or to live together in the first place.

There was an odd assumption even in the way in which the select committee considered those matters. It kept talking about those regulations, rights, and obligations as if somehow they were protecting someone in a relationship. More likely, in many cases in property relationships they were actually burdening someone. Often it is the woman in a marriage, or a previous relationship, who has managed to protect the family house—particularly as women tend to take the children more often—saved her money, and ends up in a relationship looking at any new partner with deep suspicion. The new partner stepping into a relationship with children automatically gets the benefit of the property relationships, property sharing, and, in fact, can go gold-digging from day one.

Women should have been protected from that by being treated as if they knew their own minds. This part could have had a revocation of that deemed automatic sharing that would probably mean that the people least likely to form new long-term stable, committed, companion relationships are, in fact, the people who need them the most. They are the people who are trying to rear children on their own. They are the people who ought to be able to rear children and invite someone into their life without fearing that they are there to take the house. A woman should be able to enter into a relationship without needing $2,000 to get a lawyer to tell her that she is safe and that she will not lose her house second time around. They are the people who should not be told by lawyers that they cannot give them any guarantee, because they do not know what the judge will say when their partner wants to renege on the deal. They can sign it solemnly and they can certify that both of them understand it, yet the court can still renege.

If the select committee had the courage of its own analysis we would have included in this part a revocation of the offending parts of the Property (Relationships) Act and we would have had the gratitude of possibly 200,000 people in couple relationships across this country. We would not have needed to throw the entire scheme out. We could have made it plain that the courts, for example, must take into account the expectations parties have that when they do a deal as adults, it will be upheld. We could have had a compromise position on this. If the Labour members could not bring themselves—

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) : I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour: As we are now about to move to the votes on the schedules, which are not debatable, and pursuant to agreement with the whips from the other parties around the Chamber, I seek leave for the Minister’s amendments to schedules 1AA to 12 to be put as one question; for schedules 1AA to 12 as amended to be put as one question; for the Committee to then move to vote on both of Mr Franks’ amendments to schedule 13, on the Minister’s amendments to schedule 13, and then on schedule 13 as amended; for the Minister’s amendments to schedules 13A to 15 to be put as one question, and then schedules 13A to 15 as amended to be put as one question. This will result in eight personal votes on the schedules in the Committee stage.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Leave has been sought for that course to be followed. Is there any objection? There appears to be none.

• The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 333 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to schedules 1AA, 6A, 7, 11 and 12, and the following amendments in his name to schedule 7, be agreed to:

to insert in Part 1, after the expression “25(1)(a)(ii), the expression “and (6),”;

to insert in Part 2, after the expression “65(1), the expression “and (2),”; and

to insert in Part 4, the following items:

Section 37A(1)

Insert, before the words “de facto”, the words “civil union or”;

Heading above section 42

Omit the words “de facto”.