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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-10-28 Daily Xml
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Marriage Equality

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter:

That this council—

1. Notes the Irish public have overwhelmingly voted 'yes' in the referendum on the 34th Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015; and

2. Congratulates the people of Ireland for voting in favour of legalising same-sex marriage.

(Continued from 3 June 2015.)

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (17:27): I rise to speak briefly to this motion, and it will not surprise members to hear that Family First will not be supporting it. Quite apart from one's position on same-sex marriage—and I acknowledge that there are obviously deeply held views on both sides of the debate in this chamber, and indeed in the wider community—there are a few issues in this motion which specifically deserve highlighting, in my view.

The first point I would like to raise is that while Ireland did vote in support of same-sex marriage, as the motion says, it was not the overwhelming or resounding voting success that it has been touted as being through the general media. Indeed, it is quite often quoted that 62 per cent of voters favoured same-sex marriage in Ireland; however Paul Sheehan of the Sydney Morning Herald noted that 40 per cent of the electorate did not even vote in the referendum, and furthermore something in the order of 300,000 adults are not registered to vote. That means it was actually 34 per cent of the total adult population that voted in the referendum; about one-third of the adult population actually voted.

Conversely, that means that about 66 per cent of voters simply did not vote. Thus it is more accurate to say that 62 per cent of the 34 per cent that actually voted supported same-sex marriage or, in whole figures, around 21 per cent of the Irish voting age population—roughly one in five. Hardly a resounding endorsement. These figures are almost never included to provide context in this debate, as they now have been in the debate on this motion.

My second point is that the push for the recognition of same-sex marriage is not universal, even in democratically-governed nations where it has received most attention. For example, in Finland recently a gender-neutral marriage bill was passed by the parliament, only to have the required 50,000 people sign a petition against the new laws, thus requiring their parliament to once again debate the issue, potentially—although it is not certain—leading to the scrapping of those laws. This remains to be seen; we simply do not know. Nonetheless, they have the required signatures to require the parliament to redebate the issue.

Further, and again this may not be widely known, the Austrian parliament has recently voted against same sex marriage by a margin of roughly 4:1, with 110 votes opposing the proposed law and only 26 supporting it; in fact, slightly better than 4:1, if you like. Legislating same-sex marriage is by no means universal as some would have us believe.

The third and final point I would like to raise is that, as we know, same-sex marriage is obviously a federal issue. As the High Court has determined this is a federal matter and therefore debate, commentary and motion should rightly be conducted in the federal parliament, in my view. I do not believe it is a good use of this parliament's time as the High Court has made it clear the federal parliament has jurisdiction over marriage. Same-sex marriage is an issue which has been raised in the national parliament on a number of occasions, and quite rightly so, and, in my view, it is properly debated there and therefore not here. I do not support the motion.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. G.A. Kandelaars.

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