MATTERS OF INTEREST

SAME-SEX DISCRIMINATION

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (16:12): On 3 February 2011, I wrote to the federal Attorney-General, the Hon. Robert McClelland, to raise my concerns about the Australian government's refusal to provide certificates of no impediment to marriage (otherwise known as CNIs) to same-sex couples who wish to wed overseas in countries that recognise marriage equality.

I suspect that the majority of Australians have never heard of CNIs. Unless you wish to marry overseas, there is little reason you would know about these internationally-recognised documents. Certificates of no impediment to marriage are designed to assure foreign governments that the Australian applicants meet the legal requirements for marriage in that particular country. They confirm that applicants are of marriageable age, they are not closely related to each other and are not currently married. The Australian government continues to refuse CNIs to same-sex couples.

In his letter of response to me dated 9 May 2011, the Attorney-General informed me that CNIs are not issued to same-sex couples because same-sex marriages are not recognised in Australia. The Attorney-General referred me to advice on the DFAT website that stated that CNIs are 'issued purely at the request of overseas countries seeking to ensure that a marriage involving one or two Australian citizens celebrated in that overseas country will also be recognised as a valid marriage by Australian authorities'. It is here where the problem lies.

I think the Attorney-General has been badly advised in this matter. The government's interpretation of the purpose of CNIs is incorrect, I humbly submit. CNIs are not designed to validate overseas marriages, whether these marriages be between heterosexuals or homosexuals. CNIs do not confer any recognition of the legality of a marriage under Australian law, nor do they promise to confer a mutual recognition of marriages carried out overseas. Countries such as the Netherlands and Spain, which allow the same-sex marriage of Australian citizens, have no expectation that those marriages will be recognised in Australia.

I have written again to the Attorney-General explaining why the government's policy on CNIs is incorrect. In that letter, dated 27 June 2011, I also warned the Gillard government that, if it continued to deny same-sex couples this documentation, the government runs the very real risk of appearing vindictive and petty in the eyes of same-sex couples, their families and their friends.

I believe the government should be ashamed of this unnecessarily mean policy, which it inherited from the Howard government. Why should Australian same-sex couples be inconvenienced in this manner? Why should overseas nations such as the Netherlands, Spain and South Africa, amongst others, have to make special exemptions for same-sex Australian couples from their usual CNI requirements, acknowledging that it is impossible for these Australian citizens to obtain basic legal documentation from their own government?

Let me declare an interest in this matter. As someone who is considering marrying overseas, I am personally affected by this bureaucratic bigotry. In my letter of 27 June to the Attorney-General, I also forwarded my personal application for a Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage, listing both myself and my partner Leith, for processing by the Attorney-General's Department. I eagerly await the processing of my application and the government's response.

Regardless of the outcome of the current community debate regarding marriage equality, this is an issue that must be addressed as a matter of fairness. The Gillard government must overturn this discriminatory policy, this act of bureaucratic meanness, immediately.