Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Associate Minister of Justice), on behalf of the Hon David Benson-Pope (Associate Minister of Justice): I move, That the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill be now read a second time. Today we have the opportunity to consider a bill that will strengthen New Zealand’s human rights record. This bill supports the different choices people make about their relationships. One in every five New Zealanders living in a relationship—some 300,000 people—have chosen to live in a committed, exclusive, stable relationship other than marriage. However, the law does not currently support that choice. This bill will remove the unjustifiable discrimination people face on the grounds of their marital status. De facto couples will no longer need to cope with injustice and feel distressed over the lack of recognition of their relationship. Furthermore, same-sex couples are unable to marry and, therefore, have been unable to have their relationship either formally or legally recognised.

The bill will ensure that couples in a civil union have the full rights and obligations that should be attached to the kind of commitment they are making. This gives meaningful effect to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act by ensuring that New Zealand’s laws are consistent with our human rights obligations. It also recognises and embraces the diversity of committed, exclusive, and stable relationships that exist in New Zealand. New Zealand will benefit from the legal recognition of different relationships, because people will be able to focus their energy on strengthening their relationships and positively contributing to society, knowing that the law supports their relationship decisions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Justice and Electoral Committee; its chair, Tim Barnett; and the officials who worked on the bill for all their hard work. The select committee has done an excellent job in carrying out the lengthy task of carefully analysing each proposed amendment in the bill to ensure that the amendments will not cause any unintended consequences.

The select committee has recommended a number of worthwhile amendments to the bill. In particular, it has suggested that some legislative provisions not be amended to include de facto couples because they do not, in fact, discriminate against de facto couples. The two main areas in which the committee wanted to limit the bill’s application to de facto couples relate to laws about minors and those that bestow certain interests in property upon surviving spouses. The committee was concerned about removing existing legal protections for minors if they enter into a de facto relationship. I agree that there are some difficulties with provisions relating to minors, and therefore support the approach taken by the committee.

The committee has also recommended that a number of laws bestowing interests in property on surviving spouses, particularly in Māori land legislation, should not be extended to de facto partners. The committee decided that people in de facto relationships would need to expressly nominate their partner as a person to whom they wish to leave their property interest when they die. The committee considered it inappropriate to vest automatically a property interest in a surviving de facto partner when the deceased partner may never have intended such a result. The committee believes that that amendment will respect the choice of de facto couples to make their own property arrangements.

The committee has not recommended, however, as has been reported in the media, that surviving de facto partners should no longer have relationship property rights under the Property (Relationships) Act. The select committee has suggested amending the statutory definition of de facto relationship that was to be inserted into the Interpretation Act. Rather than accepting the original definition, which included a list of factors characterising a de facto relationship, the committee prefers one that refers to two people who are living together as a couple: “… in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union”, and requires a decision maker to have regard to all the circumstances of the relationship and the context or purpose of the law in which the question is to be determined. Although I still think that the list of factors could have proved useful, I understand that the committee was concerned about the uncertainty of the types of relationships that could be covered by the definition. I think that the amended definition will achieve the right result.

It is also noteworthy that a number of amendments have been added to the bill during the select committee process. Many of the amendments arose out of legislation that was previously subject to review or that was passed after the introduction of the bill. I am aware that some submitters objected to the drafting in the bill, and, in particular, to civil union and de facto partners being included in definitions of spouse in some legislation. The committee has recommended amendments to ensure that marriage is referred to separately from civil union and de facto relationships in each provision that accords rights and entitlements to persons in those relationships. The terms “spouse”, “husband”, “wife”, “widow”, and “widower” will be defined or used only in the context of marriage. I am happy to support those amendments.

Finally, the committee has recommended that the Law Commission could review the issues it has raised around the extension of rights and obligations to de facto couples. The Government will carefully consider that recommendation from the committee. Overall, the amendments recommended by the select committee maintain the essence of what the bill is designed to achieve.

This legislation will ensure that New Zealand continues its fine tradition of leading the world in the area of domestic human rights protections. It is about legally recognising the diversity of relationships that people choose to form and promoting a fair-minded, inclusive, and tolerant society that respects differences. I strongly commend the bill to the House.

Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) : The last speaker made the point to the effect that this is leading edge legislation, and I do not doubt that in many respects it is. But we need also just to reflect on the fact that it continues the Government’s committed policy of social engineering. It is one of a number of pieces of legislation that cause concern to members of this House. I guess that the latest excrescence by way of example is the gender identity legislation that would see cross-dressing in the military, police service, prisons, and classroom.

This bill is a companion piece to the Civil Union Act that was passed in 2004, yet, in logic, it is not necessarily a companion piece. I say that because there has been a determination by a majority in the Justice and Electoral Committee to see this legislation strongly linked into the Civil Union Act and passed within a time frame that will permit both pieces of legislation to come into force at the same time.

I oppose this legislation on a number of grounds, but it is a conscience vote for members of Parliament in the National Party as to the stance they will take. My concern is that legislation of this type, because of its substantial social impact, should not proceed without a binding referendum. I make that point. Also, I will briefly say why I opposed the civil union legislation. On offer in that legislation were representations made in this Parliament that I believe were grossly misleading. The reality is that in the case of heterosexual couples, there is no significant difference between civil union and marriage. Both events are registered under the Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act. The civil union legislation is all about enabling the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Whether that is right or wrong is a matter for the individual consciences of members of Parliament, but the legislation was never represented to us on the basis on which it should have been represented. It was to deal with issues raised by submitters—issues that in the context of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill are not addressed. I sought a number of major changes to the civil union legislation, which I suggested be called the “Civil Relationships Bill”.

I have said that the present bill is a conscience vote for National members of Parliament, and it would clearly be inconsistent with my stance for me to support this legislation because of my opposition to the Civil Union Act. But the real point of substance is that this legislation creates rights and responsibilities for de facto couples. Such couples often make a deliberate choice not to enter into marriage or, now, to enter into a civil union. They prefer to be in a de facto relationship. They deliberately, in some cases, opt for the perceived advantages of a less formal, sometimes transient relationship. It is a matter of recorded history that de facto relationships are less stable than marriages sanctioned by the institution of the State. Yet this bill proposes to fix those de facto couples with rights and responsibilities that are in many cases akin to marriage and civil union. [Interruption] I am not sure who the troublesome woman is who is interrupting, but I will come to the points that I think she is trying to make in just a moment.

I want to say, in the context of the substance of the bill, that the bill does two things. It gives legal effect to civil unions and it takes the view that in general terms all relationships should be protected—the relationship of marriage, the relationship of civil union, and this relationship, which is difficult to define but is broadly encompassed under the hat of de facto relationships. Why do I say that? Because that is what the majority of the select committee say. They say in part in the commentary on the bill: “As a result of the work of the committee we recommend that terms of reference be developed for referral to the Law Commission to further assess any remaining inequities between de facto couples and couples who are married or in a civil union.”

For the reasons I have already explained, I have real reservations about adding rights and responsibilities to de facto relationships when people deliberately and determinedly enter into those relationships in order not to be fixed with such obligations. But there is another, and perhaps more significant point. I do not believe that it was appropriate that the Justice and Electoral Committee was involved in substantive policy work as it sought to make major changes to this bill that the Government introduced. The Minister has already commented about those sweeping changes. The committee does not have the resources—and I would say that it does not have access to the necessary third-party skills—to do that type of work, so it is not surprising that a large number of errors have been made along the way. Nor is it surprising that a large number of anomalies have been created.

Let me give an instance of that. Let us take the case of a male, aged 16, in civil union with another male, aged 40. It is quite possible for a male aged 16 to be in a civil union. The legislation contemplates that possibility in a number of ways, but two of them are the consent of the parents for that civil union to occur or a court order to that effect. Under this legislation the 16-year-old male will be the stepfather of the children of the older male’s first marriage. That seems to me utterly bizarre. It comes about because of the interrelationship of the definitions in the bill as they currently stand. It could be quite significant, because there could be substantial property issues in the context of assets held by that younger male. So I see in this legislation, which should be about the protection of young people, the very real possibility of substantial exploitation.

The final point I would like to make is that I believe that the legislation fails to address an issue that I have urged should be addressed: the position of next of kin and other domestic relationships. The committee touches on this on page 7 of its report. It notes the submissions that have been made on this topic, which I think is a truly troublesome one. I suggested through my proposed amendments to the Civil Union Bill that that issue should be addressed there and then. The clerk ruled that those concerns of mine that were translated into amendments were properly within the scope of the bill. The committee states: “We believe that further work should be undertaken in respect of any proposal to recommend a next of kin register or to include relationships that were not in the nature of marriage or civil union.”

As the Minister has said, there has been a decision to take out the indicators in the bill that established, or did not establish, the presence of a de facto relationship. A de facto relationship is difficult to define. I thought that those indicators were, in fact, helpful, but they have been stripped from this legislation as reported back. Instead—and I would say unhelpfully—a 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 … live together as a couple in a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union;”.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) : As chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee, which dealt with this complex legislation over a period of about 6 months, I would like to commend the report of the committee to the House. I begin by thanking the submitters—we had many submitters on this legislation—the committee staff, and the departmental staff who spent many hours dealing with the issues arising from the legislation. I also thank the select committee members, particularly those who had a strong objection to civil union but were able to cooperate very positively in addressing some of the real issues in this legislation.

I would like very quickly to go through a number of aspects of the bill. Firstly, looking at the environment it addresses, there are 186 New Zealand laws that provide rights or responsibilities to people who live in relationships. The committee discovered that almost exactly half of these laws—95—already cover people in married or de facto relationships, and the remaining 91 cover only married people. We assumed that there was some dramatic difference between the 95 and the 91 in terms of the nature of the legislation; in fact, there is very little difference. The only rationale that explains why half our laws cover married and de facto people and half do not is that the first category of laws—the 95—are either new to this Parliament in the last few years or have undergone reform of their original drafts. That means that over time this Parliament, under various colours of political control, has been adding “de facto” to existing legislation.

The committee then went further and found out that before 1984, de facto couples were added to five laws; between 1984 and 1990, five other laws were amended to add “de facto”; between 1990 and 1999—when I believe Mr Worth’s National Party was in power—20 laws were amended to add de factos to married couples; and 61 further laws have been amended since 1999. I do not remember back in the 1990s allegations of social engineering or calls for referenda over the sombre reality of adding de facto couples to legislation already covering married people. So what we are doing with this legislation is effectively a tidy-up of a trend that has been going on in Parliament for many years.

The second key point about the environment of the bill is obviously that we now have a Civil Union Act. The first civil unions take place on 30 April 2005, and no New Zealand law currently gives a right or a responsibility to people who have entered into a civil union; so the second purpose of this bill is clearly to give life to the concept of civil unions.

The third social reality behind all of this is that according to the last census, which was carried out 4 years ago, a quarter of all New Zealand couples living together are not in a marriage. Among younger people—those aged under 45 years—that applies to a third of couples. So an increasing number of New Zealanders are living in de facto relationships, yet half the relevant laws do not cover them. This bill amends the vast majority of those 91 laws that currently exclude de facto couples, and it amends all but one of the relevant laws to include people living in civil unions. The committee really examined the bill on that basis.

I would like to address directly a comment made by Richard Worth. He said that de factos opt not to marry or to civil unionise, and that some do this actively and some do this passively. That is absolutely accurate. But when one actually looks at the legislation that is being addressed, one has to apply the reality of a de facto relationship to the Acts being amended by this bill. For example, there is a whole category of legislation that calls on the spouse of somebody who is on a board to have his or her interests revealed also, but this legislation does not currently apply to a civil union partner or a de facto. It is in the interests of the wider society that there be transparency in the operation of boards. That is why we already have laws dealing with board members who are married. And, quite properly, for the benefit of the wider society those laws should be expanded to include de facto couples and civil unions.

On the issue of access to a body in a mortuary, currently the mortuary regulations that define who can access a mortuary to see a body apply only to married couples. Most people in a de facto relationship, I suspect, would not foresee themselves coming across such regulations were one of them to die and the other to want to get into the mortuary to view the body.To take another example, income tax law currently has a mixture of treating all relationships equally, and actually separating marriage from de facto relationships. This completes the process, which has been going on for years, bit by bit, of treating all couples equally for income tax purposes.

I will give a last example: there is a package of legislation around committal orders for drug or alcohol addiction that gives the partner of the person who has an addiction the ability to sign a committal order for that person, and, again, legislation has to be amended so that de facto and civil union partners are treated in the same way. So these are all about realities. These are all situations that people can get into. We will now, as a result of this bill, have much clearer law.

What we then did—noting, by the way, that giving civil unions and de facto relationships broadly equal legal status is not the same as giving them equal social status, in whatever way—was to look in detail at the legislation. We have made three crucial changes. Firstly, as touched on by the Minister and by Richard Worth, we changed the definition of “de facto” to continue the current practice, which is to define “de facto” as a relationship in the nature of a marriage. Into that we added “or civil union”. That was on the basis that flexibility would be maintained; that although the checklist approach—the definition of de facto relationships—may be appropriate for property relationships, it was not appropriate for the vast range of scenarios envisaged by this law. Also, we felt that a simpler, more straightforward definition would encourage courts to handle disputes that might arise in the context of the law to which they relate. That was the first change made by the Justice and Electoral Committee.

Secondly, we removed some of the proposed new rights for de facto couples relating particularly to under-18-year-old de factos, and also for inheritance rights when one of a de facto couple dies without a will. We felt that there should not be an automatic assumption that the surviving de facto partner should be the inheritor. A very particular amendment we made was that the Wills Act of 1837, which is currently being reviewed as part of a Law Commission review on succession, should not have civil union added but that the Law Commission should be able to report first.

A third point is on the language of the legislation. We found that not only was the bill as drafted a bit of a mixture, so that on occasion the word “spouse” was read to mean “de facto and civil union partner”, but also we found that a number of laws passed by this Parliament over the last 20 years also mixed up the language of “marriage” and “de facto”. We also recommended, as touched on by the two previous speakers, terms of reference for the Law Commission by the relevant Minister, and those will proceed on a range of issues, including people living in a non - de facto relationship with another person..

This is a moderate and common-sense approach to tidying up discrepancies that can lead to discrimination in our law. I commend the bill to the House.

DAIL JONES (NZ First) : The bill that we have before us is the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. It follows on from the Civil Union Act and it really should be called the “Civil Union and Other Relationships (Statutory References) Bill”, because without the Civil Union Act having been passed we would not need this legislation. It is all to do with civil union.

There is a conscience vote on this bill and there is almost a total majority on the part of New Zealand First members against this legislation. Our policy is quite clear on this type of social engineering. There should be a referendum on the issue, and all the people of New Zealand should decide, rather than a few of us here in Parliament expressing our own personal views.

When this bill was before the House on its first reading, both myself and Stephen Franks commented on the fact that somehow or other de facto relationships had become dragged into a civil union type of bill. I think we were the only two members who really grasped that that was the situation. Of course, the question of de facto relationships has received a considerable airing before the Justice and Electoral Committee. Many changes have been made in this area—some for better, some for worse—and various comments have been made by committee members. I am a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee, but I regard this bill as being rotten to the core, and there was no point in wasting my time in the select committee on it, because I knew that, regardless of what happened, I was always going to vote against a civil union bill. From time to time I tried to take some note of what was going on—and I have noted the various comments made in the select committee process—but I note that the majority report talks about “most of us”, which, in the select committee, tends to mean, I think, the Labour Party and the Greens. I do not think it includes—[Interruption] No, the Labour Party and the Greens. So when people read this report and see what is before—

Stephen Franks: And Clem Simich.

DAIL JONES: The Labour Party, the Greens, and the Hon Clem Simich, who is a member of the select committee. That is what is meant by most of us. It does not include New Zealand First, the ACT party, the United Future party, or any other National Party member who might have been present, like Richard Worth. The report itself shows the confusion in the minds of committee members when they looked at de facto relationships. The commentary, under the heading “De Facto Relationships”, states: “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…”. That is very true. This bill does leave a lot of uncertainty.

The United Future party member tried to make an amendment. As a lawyer he made the point, as the commentary states, that he “…believes that not including the common law provisions in the bill creates greater confusion.” I am absolutely sure he is right. Again, if we look at the amendments made by the select committee, we see that the commentary states, under the heading “Social Security Act 1964”: “Most of us recommend that some of the proposed amendments to the Social Security Act 1964 relating to de facto couples be omitted.” There was a considerable degree of change, messing around, and alteration in the select committee, as far as I can see, on this bill. As far as de factos are concerned, there seems to have been a considerable degree of gutting of the bill, in so far as those relationships are concerned.

But, of course, the vast majority in New Zealand who support decent family standards are even more gutted that this type of legislation should proceed in any form at all. This bill makes it clear that the Government does not give a damn about the welfare of New Zealand and decent family relationships. As I have said before in this House, this bill is being debated here only to please the coterie of homosexuals and lesbians who surround the Prime Minister. It does not matter what Mr Tim Barnett has said about it in trying to give us an exposition on what is meant by “de facto relationship” and suchlike, because all those changes are being made for only one reason, which is that there was a Civil Union Act in the first place. If we had not had this Act, we would not have had this bill.

I ask this House, and the country, why we are wasting time on legislation that will benefit less than 0.2 percent of our adult population when there is an enormous amount of important legislation on this Order Paper, some of which has been waiting for years to be completed. There is only one reason. Again, I say it is that coterie of homosexuals and lesbians, who are more important to the Prime Minister than the rest of the people of New Zealand, especially those who have decent family relationships. We should be here in the House to establish decent standards of behaviour in our society. This Labour Party Government, which has been kept in office by the United Future party and which receives the full support of the Greens in this legislation, is signalling to all New Zealanders that the standard for New Zealand society is that of a homosexual and homosexual relationship, or a lesbian and lesbian relationship.

I also note that, in particular, the leader and the deputy leader of the United Future party support this legislation and have voted for it—

Murray Smith: On the first reading.

DAIL JONES: I will be interested to see whether they change their minds on the second reading, but so far the leader and deputy leader of United Future support this legislation.

What a difference there is in Australia. No wonder New Zealanders are leaving to go to live in Australia. Why would they ever want to come back? The Labor Party, the National Party, and the Liberals in Australia have rejected this appalling type of family-bashing legislation. Why would anyone want to come back to New Zealand to put up with high-cost housing, low wages, and an atmosphere where families are derided by the Government of the day, which is supported by the Greens and kept in office by the United Future party? Why on earth would they want to come back? This bill does not even have the courage to consider the question of those people living in relationships having the best part of all worlds.

The majority of the select committee was not capable of confronting many of the questions, and decided that some of the issues should be dealt with by the Law Commission. What a waste of time! The Government and the majority are saying that they want to pass some of the problems over to the Law Commission, instead of making the decision, here and now, so we can vote on it, here and now.

New Zealanders are making it clear, in their tens of thousands, that they cannot stand this type of legislation any more. The prostitution legislation has gone through this Parliament, thanks to the Greens vote, and United Future supported the Government on supply matters. We have seen gender-bending legislation, in which fathers have been called mothers, and mothers have been called fathers, pass through this House, thanks to this Labour Party. We now have legislation that is aimed at assisting barely 0.2 percent of our population. New Zealanders cannot get health care, they have to pay through their nose for education, yet this Government’s priority is to rush this type of legislation through the House.

No wonder families in New Zealand are on their knees, and just about down and out. What consolation is it to a solo mother on her own, who is trying to bring up three children and get them into school this year, who sees this bill go through the House at a cost of about $10 million to $20 million when we look at both pieces of legislation? That money should be spent on her and her children, instead. She has to pay school fees, and pay for school uniforms and for all those unforeseen incidentals that crop up. If her child loses his or her shoes, or if they are stolen, perhaps even on the first day at school, she has to find the money to replace them, while Helen Clark and her coterie waste the public’s money on a civil union, statutory relationships bill.

What an absolute load of nonsense to have this type of legislation going through the House. Of course, to top it all off, as Richard Worth has said, on members’ day we will have to put up with this gender-bending, cross-dressing legislation from Georgina Beyer. What an utter waste of money. Presumably she had the approval of the Labour Party to bring her bill into the House.

Jill Pettis: Oh Dail, go and have a lie down.

DAIL JONES: The senior Government whip cannot take it any more. She has to put up with it in her caucus, and she will have to vote for it, too. That is what we have to put up with in this House. The Labour Party is pushing cross-dressing legislation in this House, and somehow or another is making that law as well.

What is this country coming to? No wonder New Zealanders prefer to live in Australia, and do not come back to New Zealand. We should be concentrating on real issues, rather than wasting all this money. We should be looking at encouraging decent family relationships in New Zealand, rather than this type of rubbish. New Zealand First has a conscience vote on this issue, and just about all of us will be voting against it. I will have the utmost pleasure in doing so, with my New Zealand First colleagues.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Stephen Franks.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. My understanding is that on conscience votes the precedent is to take members in terms of their seniority, not on the basis of their party affiliations. Can you give the House a steer as to the modus operandi you are operating with respect to this conscience vote, in terms of allocating speaking slots, as to the likely order in which you will call members, simply so members can plan accordingly when they have other commitments outside the House?

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I cannot make that presumption. I call members as I see it, but I certainly cannot presume the way they will be speaking or voting. I call it in the way that I see it.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. There is a long run of Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders about the order in which speakers will be called on a Government bill, and there is a different set of Speakers’ rulings for a conscience issue. I am seeking clarification from yourself as to what set of Standing Orders you are dealing with. Although this is a Government bill, it is a conscience vote. It is perfectly reasonable for me simply to ask you which rules we are abiding by. Are you calling members in the order of party rankings, as per a Government bill, or are you doing it as for a conscience vote, in which those Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders would apply?

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : If you would like a little time to consider that point, I am perfectly happy to allow both Dr Nick Smith and the United Future member to speak before me. I understand that the United Future member has another commitment, and I would be interested to hear Dr Smith’s address. If that assists you to take the time to consider his request, I am perfectly happy with that.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: In the end, the matter of how I call members is at my discretion but if the member wishes to follow that course, I will invite members to call.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : Firstly, I acknowledge Stephen Franks and thank him for his generosity, because I have another commitment and I have people waiting for me. This bill is another dose of this Government’s anti-family policies and puts it down as the most anti-family Government in the history of New Zealand. The bill has been described as the companion bill to the Civil Union Act, but in every respect, whereas that Act was the symbolic packaging, this bill is the substance and the grunt of that radical piece of social engineering.

This bill is based on two premises that are fundamentally flawed. The first of those is that all relationships are equal, whether they are a married relationship between a man and a woman, a relationship between two men or between two women, or a de facto relationship. It is like the “NCEA-ing” of families—that is, let us not have any difference; everything is going to be just the same. I say to Government members that all relationships are not the same, for two very basic reasons. The first of those is that men and women are different but equal. The notion presented by the Government that a relationship between two men is exactly the same as a relationship between two women, or between a man and a woman, is wrong. It is wrong because for hundreds of years of culture and history, a man and a woman have been the foundation of a family in which children are raised, who are the next generation.

The further point that is lost is the idea that the length of the relationship is relevant. Two people who make a public commitment to each other for life are considered by this Government to be absolutely identical to two people who go into a de facto relationship. It may be the view of Government members that every couple that goes into a de facto relationship is just very dumb, and that the couple really meant to get married. It is my view that those are distinctly different relationships. The fact that a man and a women enter into a relationship with the intention of it being a lifelong relationship is quite different from a man and a woman living together without that concept of, without that commitment towards, it being a lifelong partnership.

There should be no surprise at, and I notice there is a lecture in Parliament this evening about, the radical change in demographics. The reality is that fewer and fewer people are choosing to have children. In many instances in Western countries, the number of children being born now is even fewer than that needed for the population replacement rate. That is little wonder, when we have one Government bill after another stating that families do not matter—they are irrelevant. To the Government it does not matter whether someone is in a same-sex relationship, a de facto relationship, or a married relationship—it is all just the same. I say to members of the Government that for all the debates that we have in this House about issues of drug abuse, youth crime, educational attainment—

Jill Pettis: You’re an intelligent man. Stop talking like that.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: —and all the risk factors, all the social policy research, I say to Ms Pettis, shows that children overwhelmingly do better when they have a mum and a dad.

Jill Pettis: That’s not true.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I challenge Jill Pettis on the Government side of the House to show me the research, whether it be from the Christchurch school of medicine or elsewhere. I could quote sociologists who have said that if there is any area of sociology in which there is a consensus, it is that in respect of issues such as drugs, crime, educational attainment, self-esteem, or poverty, children generally, on average, do best in two-parent families. Now, of course there are families—single-parent families—that do really well, and I say good on them. But we, as a Parliament, need to think about what works best for society as a whole, and it is my contention, absolutely unapologetically, that children in New Zealand will do best when they have a committed mother and father who are going to raise them. This bill undermines that very principle of our society.

This is radical legislation; it changes 186 laws. It means, in respect of superannuation, of rights at the hospital, of what takes place in the courts of the land, and of the family relationships that are recognised, that it is ground-breaking law. This is not an academic piece of tidying-up. It is radical social engineering, in terms of the way that our society has functioned for hundreds of years.

My concern is quite contrary to the contribution that was made by Tim Barnett. This legislation does not provide certainty. Let me explain why it does not. This bill states that any two people who are living together—two men, two women, or a man and a woman—are deemed to be living in a de facto relationship if the relationship is in the nature of marriage or civil union. That is all it states. If the court deems that one lives in a relationship that is in the nature of a marriage or a civil union, then, bang, one is part of a marriage in every sense, in terms of 186 different statutes. Now how is a young person at university, who decides to flat with a person of the same sex or the opposite sex, to know at what point he or she gets certainty as to way that he or she is clawed into all the very extensive legal obligations covering over 186 Acts? There is no certainty. Any court can deem that to apply—and we have even removed from the initial bill the criteria that would have given people some guidance as to whether they are deemed to be married. I tell this House that the Minister in charge of this bill has done more than the Reverend Moon could ever have dreamt of doing. He used to be proud of the fact that he had married 2,000 or 3,000 people at one time. Under the provisions of this legislation we are effectively marrying off over 250,000 New Zealanders without their consent, and that is wrong.

I also say that Government members’ argument about semantics is quite galling. They are saying to the House that they respect marriage and respect a husband and a wife, because they are going to protect those terms. But the reality is that, in every legal sense, a civil union will be identical to a marriage. The words change, yes, but the reality does not. That confirms the giant fib from the Prime Minister that this legislation was not a gay marriage bill. Of course it was, because in every single respect, and in every single law on our book, a relationship between a man and a woman is to become identical in the courts of New Zealand—in the law of the land—to a marriage between a husband and wife. That is nothing less than a con job; it is a game in semantics. The reality is that this Government does not know the difference between those relationships.

We do need to acknowledge people’s freedom to have relationships of their choosing. It is wrong for this Parliament to pretend that all relationships are the same. Marriage is a relationship and an institution that has served many, many generations of people for centuries, and it is quite wrong for this Government to engage in this sort of radical social engineering. It is not good for society. It is not good for families. This legislation is aimed around the interests of a few people, rather than the interests of our country. We should reject this bill. We should acknowledge that marriage, civil unions, and de facto relationships are different.

MURRAY SMITH (United Future) :GiambattistaVico, after completing an exhaustive study of ancient history, concluded in 1725 that marriage between a man and a woman is an essential characteristic of civilisation. Without strong social norms that encourage a man to direct his sexual attentions to a single woman and thereafter care for his offspring, Vico concluded that chaos ensued. Marriage, he wrote, was the seedbed of society.

British anthropologist J D Unwin reached the same conclusion some 200 years later. In his 1934 book, Sex and Culture, Unwin chronicled the historical decline of 86 different cultures. His exhaustive survey revealed that “strict marital monogamy” was central to social energy and growth. Indeed, he said, no society flourished for more than three generations without it. Unwin stated it this way: “In human records there is no instance of a society retaining its energy after a completely new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on prenuptial and postnuptial continence.” In the 21st century, the findings of Vico and Unwin are confirmed by hundreds of sociological studies that document the impact of marital forms and marital dissolution on men, women, and children. Those studies speak with a surprisingly uniform voice: enduring marriage between a man and a woman is the best environment for the social, physical, mental, emotional, and economic development of men, women, and children. Without stable marriage, women suffer, men suffer, and children suffer the most. Every deviation from the ideal model of enduring monogamous marriage between a man and a woman increases the suffering of men, women, and children.

We were fortunate in the Justice and Electoral Committee to have a submission from John Sax, a well-known Auckland philanthropist. Unfortunately his submission had almost no attention paid to it by the select committee. He outlined for us the social statistics on marriage relationships and children who are born into marriage relationships when compared with other forms of relationship. Just extracting a few of those makes salutary reading.

According to Australian studies, family abuse and child abuse leading to the deaths of children are three times more likely to occur in de facto parent families than in marriage, four times more likely to occur in solo-parent families than in marriage, seven times more likely to occur where a family includes a stepfather or blended marriage, five times more likely to occur where the child is living with a family without one or more biological parents, and, from UK studies, 18 times more likely to occur with cohabiting biological parents, and 73 times more likely to occur where the mother is cohabiting with a non-biological partner.

When it comes to the area of health problems, solo mothers are four times more likely to have health problems than married mothers, and adolescents in divorced or unmarried relationships are twice as likely to have health problems.

In education, children from single-parent families have a 76 percent lower academic completion rate than children from families with parents who are married, and twice the number of high-school leavers who leave with no educational qualifications have parents who are not married rather than married parents. Children with parents who have never married are 1½ times more likely to be expelled. Children in families with solo mothers are twice as likely to drop out of school than children who have married parents, and children whose parents have never married are four times more likely to be expelled.

When it comes to economics, solo parents have 4½ times the level of child poverty of married parents, and de facto relationships are twice as likely to have child poverty within them than in married relationships.

When it comes to suicide, children from families with step-parents, or blended families, are twice as likely to commit suicide. Children with single parents are three times more likely to commit suicide. In fact, in Sweden, the factor was 20 times. In Sweden, which is upheld by our Prime Minister as a model, it is 20 times more likely that children from a single-parent family will commit suicide than children with married parents. Children with separated parents are 20 times more likely to commit suicide. Children from fatherless homes are 40 times more likely to commit suicide.

When it comes to teenage pregnancies, the number of teenage pregnancies in daughters who live in homes without fathers is over six times the level of teenage pregnancies of daughters who come from homes with married couples.

When it comes to the area of serious crime resulting in imprisonment, the number is three times higher for boys raised in step-families than for boys raised in married-couple families, two times higher for boys raised in solo families, and 3.7 times higher for children raised in a family with a stepmother. There is a 2½ times higher chance of jail for boys born to unmarried parents and a three times higher chance for males who live with stepfathers, and it is 19 times more likely that children who come from fatherless homes will be involved in a serious crime resulting in imprisonment.

All the statistics point us towards the fact that children raised in a married-couple family do far better on all socio-economic indicators than children in other forms of relationships. We should be providing a safe place for our children. We should be minimising the violent offending, sexual abuse, youth suicide, addictions, and mental health problems of our children, improving their health, and providing the best education outcomes for them. Promoting marriage ahead of all other forms of relationships helps to do that.

This Government does the opposite. This bill undermines marriage. It states that civil unions are equivalent to marriage, but there are no guidelines in terms of what civil unions will end up as. As I said in my minority report on the bill, future societal expectations have been left in limbo. In terms of same-sex civil union relationships, there is a failure to recognise the important but different contributions that mothers and fathers make to the raising of children. What the proponents of this bill are saying is that two mothers or two fathers are just as valid and just as helpful to children as having a mother and a father is, and that is just plain wrong.

Marriage deserves to be discriminated for. All the statistics say so. Instead, this Government is bending over backwards to reduce marriage to equal status with other, far weaker forms of relationship. We should be funding and encouraging pre-marriage counselling. We should be teaching the importance and value of marriage as a stable, exclusive, heterosexual, and long-term relationship to our children. We should be providing early intervention for marriages in trouble. We should be encouraging a culture of staying in marriages as far as it is possible to do so. Until we seriously address the environments in which our children have been raised and encourage the level of parental commitment that marriage alone provides, all other factors are like ambulances at the bottoms of cliffs, and the money will be largely wasted.

Why do we not address the causes of those problems—namely, the breakdown of family relationships—rather than keeping on addressing simply the results that we suffer? Why are we creating new forms of relationships such as the civil union when we have no idea what that will involve? But in my view, it undoubtedly will lead to relationships that are less stable, less exclusive, and, probably, more temporary than marriage. If that was not going to happen we would not need to introduce them. Why are we doing that when all those indicators point us in a different direction? They point us to the fact that marriage is the one strong institution in our society that provides the best outcomes for our children.

This bill should not pass.

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) : I rise to support the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill and I shall make some comments about some of the speeches that came before mine. I find it ironic that the Hon Dr Nick Smith gave us one of his tirades about adding de facto relationships to statutes in this House, when he was part of the National Government in the 1990s that added de facto relationships to no less than 20 pieces of legislation. But I guess in Opposition, as per usual, the National Party says one thing, then gets into Government and does something different.

When we speak about adding de facto relationships to our laws, it is always a difficult topic. When we are considering the demographic shift that we have seen towards more New Zealanders entering into de facto relationships, I believe that we need to get away from the rhetoric and look at what the evidence really says. New Zealanders deserve law that is based on reality, not just on frothy-mouthed rhetoric, which is what we have been seeing in this House.

Many de facto relationships are very stable. They involve children. There are members of this House who have been in de facto relationships for longer than some members in this House have been married. I apologise to all the families out there who are raising children, doing a wonderful job, who are not married, who are in de facto relationships, or may be in homosexual relationships, who have been insulted time and time again in this House by people who think that somehow, just when a person gets married a switch flicks on inside that makes that person a good citizen and a good parent, with good financial status, and a good educator of children, when we know that that is not a fact.

Marriage does produce very good outcomes for children, more so than de facto relationships, not because marriage makes good parents, but because more good parents choose to get married. If more good parents choose not to get married, then the demographics that come out of de facto relationships will also improve.

I agree with the Hon Dr Nick Smith that all relationships are not equal. But that does not mean that all marriages are good and all de facto relationships are bad, that all heterosexual relationships are good and all homosexual relationships are bad. What it means is that it depends on the individuals in those relationships.

One thing that we hear time and time again is about the transient nature of de facto relationships. Certainly, for some that is true, just as for marriage. For example, a large number of my friends got married for the student allowance when they were at university. Marriage is not immune to those kinds of transient relationships that really are not based on love at all. A study that was done in New Zealand showed that a conservative figure of 70 percent of New Zealanders who marry now, cohabit in a de facto relationship before they marry. With an average of 20,000 or 21,000 marriages per year, that means that 15,000 de facto relationships end every year. They do not end because the relationship is unstable, or because the couple do not want to be together any more. They end because the couple got married.

That is quite a different point of view from the one put up by people who say that de facto relationships last on average only 4 years. That is not surprising when one considers the incredibly large number of de facto relationships that end every year because that couple choose to get married.

This bill is about supporting families—but all families, not just families who choose to get married. It is about supporting the children in those relationships and giving them certainty. I ask members who stand up here and say that this is destructive to families, what they would say to the children of parents who have chosen not to get married. Do those children deserve to have less certainty in their lives because of a choice their parent made? No, they do not, and that is what this bill is about. It is about recognising that there are changes in this country in relationships, children are in those relationships, and all children in this country deserve to have the full protection of the law, not just those whose parents just happen to be married.

STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) : This bill is the second limb of the civil union change; Parliament has voted on the Civil Union Bill, and I believe that only now does Parliament really know exactly what it was doing. The Civil Union Bill created a statutory pantomime of marriage. That was not what the Law Commission had suggested. The Law Commission suggested that people who live in any kind of relationship other than marriage should be able to opt into a predetermined or a convenient set of legal rights and responsibilities in relation to each other without necessarily being married. Instead, the Civil Union Bill decided very consciously to use the symbolism that the State first borrowed or took over from religion. It has run it for the last 50 years and gradually gutted it to the point where marriage means very little.

When I spoke on the first reading of the two bills I went through that progression, that running down of the distinction between what the Government likes to refer to as stable committed relationships where there was a genuine commitment, where there was some exclusivity—what we recognise in marriage—and all the other kinds of ways in which people choose to live. The Government is now rushing this second limb through, despite the fact that this bill has come back from the select committee absolutely transformed.

If we just weigh the bill in our hands we can feel the difference, the changes that the committee made. The committee was very conscientious. I was proud to be a member of it. Although the Government came to the House with a set of legislated slogans: “There is no difference between marriage and any other relationship”, and although the Government tried to say that that was because it favoured what it called protecting the parties to stable committed relationships, the bill that was introduced did nothing of the sort. The bill that was introduced simply stated: “Marriage, schmarriage, they’re all the same.”, and ignored the fact that marriage is consensual—the quintessential contract. In fact, marriage was one of the earliest glories of English law. As the British spread throughout the world they spread this then radical idea that marriage should be the free and uncoerced consent of two competent parties to a lifelong relationship.

The idea that both parties would have a choice was radical. The idea that it would be done in public so that people could see that there was no coercion was a huge advance. What this Government brought in was a bill that simply stated: “Your consent doesn’t matter at all, and far from worrying about coercion, we, the State, will simply treat you all as married.” It was an appalling bill to bring in.

I now want to give a bit of credit to Tim Barnett, the chair of the committee, and Lianne Dalziel, who is on the committee. They both recognised that at an early stage. Instead of being locked into the position that they had started with, they conscientiously worked through to try to eliminate, I will say the worst features of that automatic marriage—that is, the changing of 80-odd pieces of legislation to say that it did not matter whether people consented to marriage obligations if they happened to be living together. Indeed, the definition was so vague that it could have been as casual as a few nights together, it could have been flatmates taking advantage of their temporary closeness, or it could have been women or men under duress. It could have been any of those things.

Through an intuitive process the committee knocked out a large number of the provisions that stated: “De facto is the same as marriage.” Indeed, Lianne Dalziel went further. I think she worked out over the summer break a kind of principled rationale for what we were doing. She would have probably stated it pretty clearly in the report back to this House except for the fact that had she done that it would have made it crystal-clear that her own Government had been party to some pretty appalling treatment of marriage and family law over the last 4 years. So, instead, we got a relatively neutral, anodyne report from the committee. If we had journalism that went behind the appearances, and if we had a genuinely robust debate on family law matters, it would have been seen that what this committee has said is radical in terms of the trend of the past few years.

The committee’s reasoning says that the Human Rights Act is absolutely wrong to be making marital status a prohibited ground of discrimination. This committee has just gone through the law and said that there are lots of times when it is sensible to discriminate on the grounds of marital status. That is because marriage is a promise of a stable committed relationship where the parties volunteer and where people choose to change not only their social status, but also their legal status, yet the Human Rights Act states that the State can penalise people who draw distinctions on the basis of marital status. So it is a pretty radical report back, but members will not see that clearly in the majority report.

Dail Jones: It’s very hidden.

STEPHEN FRANKS: Yes, it is very hidden. This bill discretely notes that a lot of the tearful rhetoric we heard around the civil union debate—for example, the unfairness of people not being allowed next of kin rights when they clearly were the closest companions of people, for example in hospital. The bill does not deal with next of kin rights. We have kicked it to touch. We have sent this sort of stuff off to someone else to think about—the Law Commission. That is because, ultimately, the Labour majority on the committee could not be seen to be showing up the disastrous steps taken by the Hon Margaret Wilson, and others, earlier in the life of this Government to tell us that marriage does not matter.

So we have a bill that is an awful lot better than we started with. Is it still a bill to oppose? Firstly, for me, the bill still does not deal with the problem of the Human Rights Act. Although it amends the Human Rights Act, it does not take out that immoral and stupid prohibition on discrimination on the basis of marital status. The bill amends the Human Rights Act, but it does not protect, for example, the taxi-driver who does not want to be associated with a civil union. It does not protect the church that does not want to rent out its church hall for a celebration, whether it is civil union or simply those flaunting a sexual orientation the church disagrees with. This bill does not protect them, or their freedom to associate or not to associate. It does not protect their freedom of speech—in other words, their normal freedom to discriminate, to uphold their beliefs and live their beliefs.

I cannot support this bill when no attempt was made, other than by repairing the particular provisions that were before us, to go back and do what the Government’s rhetoric said it was really doing—that is, trying to create a foundation for stable and committed couples to live together. Interestingly, there is still nothing in the bill that says anything about “committed” or”stable”. Even after the work we have done, a de facto relationship can still be a relationship of a few days. All that rhetoric about stability and commitment means nothing. The bill still deliberately discriminates for at least the next 2 years. A gay couple will be able to draw the single benefit—some $60 a week more than a heterosexual couple in the same circumstances. That is wrong.

Lianne Dalziel: They can now.

STEPHEN FRANKS: The Hon Lianne Dalziel points out that they can now, but this law is supposed to be changing those things. This bill was introduced to end that kind of discrimination, but the Government carefully preserved it. Why did it preserve it? It preserved it on the grounds that it would not be fair to disturb people’s circumstances without giving them adequate warning. That did not seem to worry the Hon Margaret Wilson when she compulsorily married everyone for property purposes. It did not worry her, at all. Although this bill is far better than what we started out with—and I would understand people changing their votes—from the way that it was towards the end of last year, I believe it should still be voted against as a signal that this is not the way to play with family law.

LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) : I had intended to begin my comments on this second reading by thanking Stephen Franks for the gracious comments that I thought I was listening to on my entry to the Chamber, but, unfortunately, it was not to be. They were a kind of backhanded compliment.

I want to put on the record how hard the Justice and Electoral Committee worked to get the bill right. We went through every single proposed amendment, to make sure that if we were to extend rights to those who were in de facto relationships, it was the right thing to do. I am confident we have made the right decision on each and every one of them.

There are areas where we have not extended the coverage of the law to de facto couples, and I think reasonably so, taking on board the comments that the previous member made. There are occasions when people who enter into a marriage, or—now—in the future, a civil union as well, are making a positive decision to enter into a relationship that brings with it certain rights and obligations. That is clear-cut. It is a clear definition of the relationship. But for de facto relationships, different tests need to be applied. In the area of property relationships, those laws do not apply until the couple have been in a relationship for 3 years. We did not put an entry point, or a threshold point, into the definition of de facto, because why would people want to see a time limit or a time threshold included for every single situation? We have made some very sensible decisions to extend the laws to de facto couples where appropriate, and to leave certain matters for future consideration of Parliament if they are more appropriately dealt with in another area.

I will come to social security in a minute, but will just use the Evidence Act as an example. We have not amended the Evidence Act to remove spousal immunity. For those who consider that that is discrimination—personally I do not, but for a different reason—I point out that spousal immunity is a key issue within evidence law. It is best dealt with by the review of the Evidence Act. There has been a full Law Commission report on the Evidence Act, and I know that the Government is considering that report and will be introducing amending legislation, I hope by way of a code, at some stage in the future. We discovered when we were going through all the individual parts of the bill that we had an amendment to the Courts Martial Appeals Act that itself was an expression of spousal immunity. We made a decision as a committee that we should leave the spousal immunity issue to the review of the Evidence Act, and that the Courts Martial Appeals Act should be amended in line with the decision made about the Evidence Act, and I support that approach. It was a very sensible one.

Stephen Franks: Tell us about the Governor-General.

LIANNE DALZIEL: I do not want to go with the Governor-General issue, at all. I think the chances of those provisions ever being applied are so slim that I would be wasting my breath to spend a moment on them.

I want to respond to one issue that Stephen Franks raised—that is, the issue of next of kin status. Next of kin status, we discovered, is mentioned in very few pieces of legislation. In fact, probably half a dozen laws in this land actually use the expression “next of kin”. But we all know that the term “next of kin” is used in many, many other situations that are not covered by the law. A classic one is hospitals, where people have to provide information on their next of kin. The bottom line is that marriage does not have next of kin status in an Act. “Next of kin” is not defined in any Act. Obviously, everyone would accept that my husband is my immediate next of kin, and I am his. Civil union status will give the same status—that is, it proves the relationship without question. So next of kin status, as it applies in practice to married couples, will also apply to civil union couples. The same cannot be said of de facto couples, and that is why it is to be determined on a case by case basis.

The last thing I want to comment on in this second reading is the definition of a de facto relationship. The committee actually poured a lot of energy into this. We were concerned that taking the definition in the property relationships legislation into the Interpretation Act could have unintended consequences. The bottom line is that all of that law is about what happens to property at the end of a relationship; it is not about establishing rights and obligations during a relationship. We were deeply concerned that all the court cases that have led to the development of this interpretation, both in Australia and in New Zealand, are about looking at property issues at the end of a relationship, or about social security entitlements. We did not think that was a good enough basis for taking us forward in terms of the Interpretation Act, which is why we have simply added to the definition that it is a relationship in the nature of marriage or a civil union.

In terms of the Social Security Act, I take Stephen Franks’ point: yes, the Government made a decision not to extend the de facto provisions—that is, to extend the definition to include civil union, being a relationship in the nature of a civil union of longer than 2 years. But as a result we have actually left the definition of a de facto relationship out of the Social Security Act, because we felt that the Ministry of Social Development in its advice to the committee was really trying to struggle with the definition that came out of the Ruka decision. We felt that that would be much better introduced as a separate amending bill and referred to the specialist select committee that deals with social security matters. So it was not as though members of the committee wanted to walk away from what was intended by the amendment; what we wanted was to make sure this issue got the full and proper consideration it deserves.

There are all sorts of cases relating to people trying to prove they are not in a de facto relationship, for social security purposes. If Mr Franks wants to contemplate why the Government might want to distinguish between a same-sex couple and a de facto couple in similar circumstances, it is really as a result of all of those unsatisfactory cases where people say they are not living in a relationship in the nature of marriage. People have not had the opportunity to enter into a civil union in the past, and there are many couples living together in a relationship in the nature of a civil union who, to the public, are not seen as a couple, because they are still hiding their relationship. That is an issue from a different perspective that I think sets them apart from other couples. We still have discrimination in this country, and couples do not always want to be outed, as it were—certainly, not by somebody looking at whether their benefit entitlement is appropriate.

So I think the select committee has worked very hard. I would like to place on record my congratulations to Tim Barnett on an excellent job in chairing a very hard-working committee.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) : I must say that in listening to the debate, at times I felt I was in an extended déjà vu. Then I realised that many of the opponents of the bill had simply dug out their Hansard record of the debate on the Civil Union Bill and were rereading their speeches. Listening to Mr Dail Jones felt, in a way, like taking a trip back into history, to a simpler day when everyone knew his or her place, and, if one was gay, then that place was firmly in the closet.

Dail Jones: That’s untrue. I did not say that.

NANDOR TANCZOS: Well, that was the implication of Mr Jones’ statement. He cited Australia as being the golden paradise we should aspire to, with its fantastic record in terms of social tolerance and, of course, race relations!

Nick Smith said that the law counts all relationships as being the same. I think he was incorrect in that. As Moana Mackey pointed out, it is about treating people equally. That does not necessarily mean that all relationships are the same. Of course all relationships are different; they are unique to the people who have them. Nick Smith referred to men and women being equal but different. That is instructive and is exactly what I think this bill tries to acknowledge. It states that relationships should be treated equally but that they are different. We accept that the law should not discriminate between men and women, but we also accept that men and women are different and that each sex is better at some things than the other. Breastfeeding is the most obvious example of that.

Murray Smith recited a list of studies—the same studies, I think, that he referred to during the debate on the Civil Union Bill. A lot of the statistics he referred to are questionable, I believe, and the proto-anthropological studies he referred to are as likely to reveal the assumptions of their authors as to reveal any historical or sociological facts. By Mr Smith’s use of those studies he showed obscure reasoning. If we took the same line we would say that because bilingual children do better in school over the long term compared with monolingual children, we should just ban monolingual children from school.

That is the implication of that form of reasoning, and I do not think that it stacks up. In fact, what we are about here is the creation of protections and of a regime that will support long-term, committed relationships, regardless of whether they are between same-sex or opposite-sex couples.

Of course, this bill has not drawn the kind of attention that its companion bill, the Civil Union Bill, did, because it does not have the kind of symbolic value for both supporters and opponents that that bill had, which made it so contested and so important for this country. But this bill makes a number of very real changes in the lives of ordinary people, because it extends rights to couples in civil unions. The Civil Union Bill simply created the framework for civil unions, but this bill is the legislation that extends rights to those couples. It also clarifies significant sections of the law that relate to de facto partners. Like much of the business of this House, it is the relatively unremarked legislation that can often have the most profound impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people.

I would like to echo the remarks made by Lianne Dalziel about the Justice and Electoral Committee. As committee members, we did a lot of work. We did a substantial amount in working through amendments to almost a hundred Acts. We listened to the concerns of submitters, and we responded to those concerns. One of the specific concerns expressed by submitters—and, to be fair, raised also by various committee members independently; I think in particular of Stephen Franks—was that of the issues around de facto relationships. I, myself, was also concerned about that issue, and other members raised concerns. To be fair to the committee, I think that the whole committee, when those concerns were pointed out, saw the need to address them.

In the past, in the absence of civil unions, same-sex marriages, or something of that nature, we have seen legislation enacted to provide protection for same-sex couples in a roundabout way. For example, the Property (Relationships) Amendment Bill, which came before our select committee in the previous term of Parliament, was at least partly about recognising same-sex relationships when they broke up, even if Parliament at that stage could not bring itself to recognise those relationships when the people were still together. That same approach was continued in this bill, as it was introduced. So we saw an overly intrusive approach to de facto couples, extending to them many of the rights and obligations that properly applied to married couples—and apply now to civil union couples—but in a context where they did not necessarily fit. Marriage and civil union, of course, have an explicit declaration of commitment and interdependence that may be missing in a de facto relationship. Many people choose to remain in de facto relationships rather than to be married or now to enter a civil union, because they do not want the State’s intervention in their business. There are a whole range of reasons why people stay in de facto relationships. It is not for us to assume what those reasons are, nor is it for us to place obligations on relationships where the participants have not indicated that they want those obligations.

The committee looked carefully at the actual effects of the bill; we went through it quite thoroughly. We supported a number of basic approaches, and we tried to develop clear criteria by which to evaluate those things. One of the first things was around ensuring that the laws covering married couples will be extended to cover couples in civil unions. That is probably the area that so incenses members and other people who think that same-sex couples should not be recognised in law—that they should be punished for their love or, if not punished, then at least ignored in the hope that they will go away. As with the Civil Union Bill, that is a basic point of principled difference. We can debate those things, but we are unlikely to convince each other of our point of view. So it just comes down to what the majority will say in this House, and to what the majority of New Zealanders also think. Mr Franks referred to the fact that civil union ceremonies do not require an explicit long-term commitment or exclusivity, but I note that those things do not apply to marriage, either. As marriage does not require them, I think it is quite right that civil union relationships should have similar provisions in the law.

One of the things the select committee did in order to address some of the concerns, and to keep some distinction between marriage and civil union, was to use different language. Words like spouse, husband, wife, widow, and widower are used only in the context of marriage, and other language is used to describe other kinds of relationships. As I said, we looked at the de facto provisions quite carefully. Lianne Dalziel has already referred to the social security definition amendment that we removed from the bill. I think that that was the right action. It was an attempt to codify the Ruka case, but the Green Party in particular was especially concerned about the submissions from beneficiary rights groups, who indicated the very real problems that that amendment could create. I think it was quite right for the committee to leave the status quo in place—to leave the case law there to be the measure—and to allow that issue to be addressed later. As the honourable Lianne Dalziel said, it should be addressed by a committee with the requisite expertise to deal with those questions.

We looked at things like the laws relating to minors, and that is outlined in the commentary on the bill. There is the issue of what happens when guardianship ceases, so we had to look at how we could ensure protection for such people, particularly for those in a de facto situation. A young person can enter a de facto relationship fairly easily and move out of it again easily, leaving himself or herself in a vulnerable position with regard to the law, so we looked at that. We looked at the issues around bestowing property on another party, when people die intestate. I referred earlier to the principle behind our decision there. We looked at the laws to do with evidence.

After long hours of hearing submissions, of committee consideration, and of discussion outside the House, I am more convinced than ever that this bill is needed.

Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) : This is indeed a curious piece of legislation, now that it has been reported back. We are seeing here today a back-down by the Government from the extreme and ideological position it had taken about the nature of legal rights and obligations for relationships in New Zealand. I hope that today will be seen in the future as a turning point—as the day when the tide turned back towards respect for the customs and practices of the people, and as the day when Parliament finally realised that it can no longer try to impose a theory of relationships on our community.

There is no doubt that the Government has retreated significantly from the original purpose of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill—no doubt, whatsoever. The waves of theory have crashed against the rocks of reality. The reality is, and always has been, that New Zealanders will choose their level of commitment, but in the past this Parliament has not respected that choice. For instance, in the Property (Relationships) Act, Parliament came up with a completely arbitrary definition of de facto relationships, and imposed a whole lot of obligations on people who met that definition, regardless of the choices they had made.

By contrast, I welcome the efforts of the select committee, which has now ditched the rather academic definition of de facto relationship that was in the original bill and replaced it with the definition that we have always had. That is that it is a relationship in the nature of a marriage, and now a civil union, and the court must have regard to the context and the circumstances of the relationship whenever it matters to a court to determine what the relationship is.

So the project has fallen apart, and we should be grateful. We will not be saddled, as was threatened, with a theoretical and ideological construct of relationships that corresponded to almost no one’s reality. But what has happened here has been done in such a haphazard way that I am sure that unintended consequences and sadness will arise from this legislation. What do I mean by haphazard? What should have happened was that the substantial policy analysis that has been done as part of the select committee’s work should have been done in the context of rewriting this legislation, because, as one of the members of the select committee has said, the committee went through and decided that in some contexts it was appropriate to extend rights and obligations to de facto couples, and in other contexts it was not appropriate. Well, who are Tim Barnett and Lianne Dalziel to decide on that matter? Who are they? Who are the rest of the select committee—even my colleague Stephen Franks—to decide on writing the law, and on selecting the appropriate circumstances where discrimination can occur and the circumstances where it cannot?

It does not make sense. It would be much better for this Parliament to leave well alone, let the common law draw the distinctions it needs to draw, and stop trying to fiddle, impose, and theorise about how people will live their lives.

Of course, there is one aspect of this bill that does have a symmetrical and thorough approach, and that is to ensure that all the rights of marriage are extended to civil unions. That points back to the hypocrisy of the Government’s original position, which was that civil union is different from marriage. Well, in law, it is not different from marriage, and this was the legislation—hundreds of pages; 230 pages in this latest version of the bill—that says it is the same.

The committee knew that it would set off a firestorm if it were to abolish the language of marriage, and I appreciate the efforts of those who were on the committee to ensure that the language of marriage was retained. That is important to so many people in New Zealand. It was a shame that it had to be pushed on the Government—it had to be pushed on the Government right through—that, in the view of the community, marriage has a status that is different from other relationships. Certainly, the people involved in marriage believe that their relationship is different from others, and that is why they have sought out that particular type of relationship.

So the language of marriage has been retained, but in the usual swap between substance and appearance, the Government has accorded to civil union all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. Now, that will probably not be sustained, simply because the relationships are so different in reality. Civil unions, for instance, are much less likely to produce children or to have children in them when they break up, and they will break up after shorter periods of time and more regularly than is the case with marriage, and ultimately the law will have to reflect that. Parliament can pretend that it will push water uphill and can legislate for those couples to be the same, but people are not slaves to our theories. They will live the messy, unpredictable lives that we all live, and the law, ultimately, will have to reflect that.

So in that sense, while this bill may represent some kind of conceptual victory for Margaret Wilson and Helen Clark, it is a pyrrhic victory for Parliament, because people will do what they were going to do anyway, and that is how it is.

I am also concerned about the confusion now in our law around laws of discrimination, and my colleague Stephen Franks covered this issue to some extent. This bill was originally based on the idea that there should be no discrimination on marital status anywhere. The select committee figured out that that just cannot work, which is why it dipped out on the definition of “de facto” and on extending all the law to de facto relationships. That is why the committee totally wimped out on the issue of social welfare entitlements. That was always the most difficult issue in this bill.

What did the big, brave select committee do with those advanced social theorists? It just said that it would not deal with it, and that it would leave the definition of de facto relationships for social welfare purposes—where it actually really matters—to someone else. It would not deal with that in this bill.

Well, thank goodness for that! Thank goodness we will retain a modicum of common sense, where relationships will have different definitions for different purposes. That is life! If people do shack up after a couple of weeks, they should not be drawing two benefits. They should be described as a couple. But just because they are described as a couple for the purposes of benefits, it does not mean they should be described as a couple for the purposes of custody of children, or division of assets, should that relationship break up. That is how it has always been and, despite the best efforts of this Government, it will always stay that way. I welcome that particular change.

But what sense does this move now make of the Human Rights Act? If Parliament has decided to discriminate among different relationships, as is written in this legislation, why does the Human Rights Act say that we cannot do that? Are we breaching the Human Rights Act by attributing different rights and obligations to different sorts of relationships? Well, the answer to that is yes—yes we are! This legislation makes a nonsense of the provisions of the Human Rights Act that outlaw discrimination on the basis of the type of relationship one is in. The sooner more people decide to ignore the Human Rights Act, the sooner common sense will be restored to the law to make sure that we accept a pretty simple principle: different relationships are different. People choose different relationships, and the rest of us have every right to treat them differently because of the relationships they have chosen.

Hon JUDITH TIZARD (Minister of Consumer Affairs) : It is my great pleasure to rise to support the second reading of the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill, and I say I am truly astonished at the flip-flops from the Opposition side of the Chamber. I listened for 9 long years as the previous National Government justified passing Act after Act where the definition of “spouse” included people in de facto relationships, and I would like to point out to the ludicrous Opposition members, particularly to the one who preceded me, that Parliament has frequently defined relationships that people may not have been comfortable with. I would take him back to 1966 when illegitimacy was outlawed and, regardless of the fact that a father ignored his child, that child could still inherit. It is absolutely outrageous to suggest that human rights should be determined by what a few people in Parliament think will get them a few votes, because that is what the opposition to this bill is about.

I would take the Opposition members back to the 1977 Human Rights Commission Act, which did indeed outlaw discrimination on the grounds of marital status. I would take them back to the fine words that people like Doug Graham said in 1993, when the Human Rights Act was passed. This bill is about doing what Doug Graham and the previous National Government said they would do for most of the 1990s. What the Opposition is now saying is outrageous, when we consider the Consistency 2000 project. Doug Graham kept telling us, during those 9 long years, that he would see the discrimination against, in particular, women and children in de facto relationships, but also against gay and lesbian New Zealanders, taken out of our law.

I am proud of the work the Justice and Electoral Committee has done. I am proud of the work this Parliament is doing. I tell Opposition members to stop scrabbling like rats in a cupboard for a few votes, and to start thinking about people’s lives.