Shadow Minister for Primary Industries & Water, Shadow Minister for Police & Emergency Services, Shadow Minister for Parks & Wildlife, Shadow Minister for Local Government

Speeches

Search Speeches

18
Aug

Relationships Bill - Co-Mothering

2009

Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Tasmanian Liberals for granting a conscience vote on this matter. It was a conscience vote granted by the then leader in 2003 and so therefore it is appropriate that it be so again; indeed, our rules are basically that
if one person wants a conscience vote that is what the situation will be.


I was somewhat critical of the Labor Party's not having a conscience vote back then so I will restate my position that I think there should have been a conscience vote if anybody had required one, and I am surprised that no-one required one if that is the case. The rules of the Labor Party, as I understand them, are that if you want a conscience vote you can have one; no-one has asked for one so certainly in my electorate it will be of interest that the three Labor members for Lyons in this House stand with the Government on this legislation.

I took a firm position against the Relationships Bill in 2003 because it contained outcomes such as the proposal before us today. That was excluded from the bill back in 2003 as a result of the upper House baulking at the bill in its entirety so the conclusive presumption of
parenthood for same sex women was removed from the bill. In any event, I voted against the bill because I was still against, for a number of reasons, the conclusive presumption of parenthood even for a heterosexual couple. Looking back at my speech, I did not get to develop my argument very much. It was a fairly tragic delivery of a speech because I was being berated in a most disgraceful way by the then Attorney-General and the promoter of that bill at the time.

Mr McKim - Surely not!

Mr HIDDING - Sorry?

Mr McKim - I was being sarcastic.

Mr HIDDING - It was a conscience vote so then everybody agreed to do it in good spirit but really I could hardly get a word out. Thank heavens we have a better arrangement in the House these days, not that that is a reflection on her; she felt strongly about it at the time and I feel
strongly about things too. Back then, incidentally, there were only three members who voted against the second reading and I think there was another member who voted against it on the third reading because it contained that conclusion of presumptive parenthood, but that matter is before us today.

The bill back then created a situation where a person could be presumed to be a parent even when it was not true. A man, if in a significant relationship at the time of conception by his partner with donor sperm, can become the father even if he is not. An adoptive father can look
after a child from birth to adulthood and acts as a father to that young person for the rest of that person's life, but he cannot get on the birth certificate in spite of the fact that he spent his entire life with that child and the child spent his entire life with him and he has done a great job in bringing up the child. Even at the age of 80 he cannot say that he has been a loving father of that person all his or her life and he would like to be on that person's birth certificate as the father because of the great job he has done because it is not possible at law. Yet the
situation today is that a male partner of 29 days standing in a registered, significant relationship can give permission to his partner to undergo IVF with donated sperm and be deemed by the State of Tasmania to be the parent for the rest of that child's life. On the basic document of identity that person is the father even though he is not and my concern is that we are using serious and basic documents of identity in a way that is dishonest.

I believed at the time that that was wrong but it has gone through and it is now law and, as always, the sky has not fallen in but there was a situation created back then which, of itself, created a discrimination. I knew then that at some stage there would be another bill coming forward to address that discrimination and that is where we are today.

The matter of marriage has been raised by the previous speaker and is clearly a matter that is very dear to his heart on the basis of discrimination - that same-sex marriage is a position of the State Labor Party, that it is binding on the State PLP because it was a decision of
their State council. The institution of marriage is something that most people in my electorate see as being what the official designation of that institution says it is, and anything else is sheer sophistry. I believe that my electors want me to stand firm against the corruption of the
institution of marriage, because to pretend it is something other than what it is is simply a corruption of a long-held - in fact, a constitutionally-held - truth of what something is, and he would seek to simply change it.

Mr McKim - It's not constitutionally held that marriage is between a man and a woman, it is legislatively held.

Mr HIDDING - Section 51?

Mr McKim - Yes. Section 51 just says that marriage is a concurrent power.

Mr HIDDING - Yes, it does, and it is legislatively held that it is between a man and a woman - that is right, I am sorry. But I maintain that, for as long as those laws have been in place, people believe them to be what they have generally been, which is a union between a man and a woman.

I believe my electorate wants me to stand firm against the corruption of the meaning of the institution of marriage, just as they want me to do with the institution of parenthood. I believe the institution of parenthood in most people's minds is a clear concept. Marriage is a state
entered into by a man and a woman, as it is understood under Federal law, and if there needs to be something for same-sex partners there can be, but I believe it cannot be marriage. It can be something, but not marriage, so call it something else.

I believe there is a moral patent on the institution and the word 'marriage' that it actually belongs to a man and a woman. It is discriminatory, but that is not to say that every discrimination in the world is wrong, some are appropriate discriminations, and that is where we
will beg to differ. Therefore in talking about corruption of meanings, the institution of parenthood in its usual meaning is that genetic material of a man plus the genetic material of a woman equals a mother and a father. This bill proposes, just like the previous one did, to corrupt
the birth certificate, which is the fundamental bureaucratic unit of someone's identity. It gets corrupted by this bill by stating an absolute flat untruth. The policy here is called 'conclusive presumption of parenthood' and it requires words like that because, again, it is sophistry. It says, someone is a parent when he is not. It is proposed after this legislation that a woman becomes a parent even if she is not.

Ms Giddings - But that is what happens with men right now.

Mr HIDDING - Yes, that is what I just said. The current situation corrupts the meaning of a parent for a male partner who has taken the actions for that to occur. The bill before us proposes to allow the corruption of the meaning of parenthood and of mother as well. I think it
is a very grave error to be playing around with the fundamental documents of identity. Currently, the man in question is not the father. He may be something but he is not the dad. He could be called something else but he should not be called the father on the birth certificate.

So that is the current situation since 2003. Now it is proposed that we go to the next logical step where all this sophistry takes us. We close the loop of corruption of the institution of parenthood. We are now being asked to allow a birth certificate to provide for two women to be co-mothers because it is discriminatory to not do so. With the current situation it is still a corruption of the truth, he is not the father at all, but at least it could be argued that he could be. But in the newest proposal it is genetically impossible for a child to have two mothers. So
not only is a 29-day female partner declared to be the child's parent, when it is not true, she is declared to be the mother when she did nothing, and could not have, and when she is not the child's real mother.

This is simple stuff for me. The institutions of marriage and parenthood are the building blocks of the family and the family is the cornerstone of society. That traditionally gets derided as a simple Christian view of a white-picket-fence ideal and therefore in 2009 is an inappropriate ideal to be held. I have steadfastly refused to be treated as though my faith and my commitment to strong values-based representation in this place gives me some sort of impediment to clear thinking. So let me be clear. This final iteration of the corruption of a birth certificate can lead to a number of strange matters. It can lead to other discrimination which
apparently is not being considered here. It just simply increases the discrimination. There are adoption laws and circumstances in this State which preclude a woman from applying to be an adoptive mother of a child after a certain age. They simply say you are too old and you cannot do it. I know that to be the case because I know a number of young couples who are desperate for adoption from overseas or within Australia, though mostly from overseas these days because we have an open adoption process. You try to get on the adoption ticket when you are around 40 but you simply cannot. You are seen as too old. But this, after this legislation
goes through, brings about a situation where, let us say, a 40-year old woman chooses to have IVF from donor sperm and her - let us pick a figure, and I am being ageist - 60-year old partner of 29 days gives consent and does the right things and becomes, from the term of that child's life, a mother of that child. It is not possible in the adoption laws of this State but it is entirely possible under the Relationships Act in Tasmania. So there is a discrimination that is created immediately.

I am not holding this out as any shocking outcome necessarily because, after all, there are a lot of old men around who father children very late in life. This is not a commentary on that. What I am trying to point out, clumsily, is that the removal of the discrimination is just going to open up more and more discrimination. I suppose it is so that as legislators we continually try to work through them to remove as many as we can. There are those of us, and there are many in the community, who believe that certain discriminations are appropriate and that we should not go there.

I believe that this bill is pro-adult and anti-child. I see it as a dereliction of my duty as a legislator to provide for a system where, all things being equal, a reasonable expectation of Tasmanian children is that they could grow up with a mother and a father or, if not, that the
official documentation as to their identity at least does not tell lies. That is my position and I will vote against this bill, as I did in 2003.

I understand the motivation of the Attorney-General in bringing this forward. It is always good to keep a weather eye on discriminations and try to deal with them if we can. I believed that the conclusive presumption of parenthood for males was wrong and false, a corruption of the institution of parenthood and an unnecessary one as well, so therefore logically I must be as much against the notion of a same-sex couple being presumed to be co-mothers of a child. I believe the bill is pro-adult and anti-child. Children are a much weaker and vulnerable cohort in our society and on this occasion I choose to vote in their interests.