Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The contribution that has just been made by the member for Stirling highlights legitimate suspicions about the motive for this legislation. If I heard correctly, the member for Stirling asserted that this means the government does not support the Marriage Act. That is complete bunkum, rubbish, and the sort of thing you would expect from the opposition. We have now seen the real motivation for these amendments being put forward, and that is so that the opposition can go around falsely claiming that the government does not support the Marriage Act.

What we are saying is that taking on an amendment to this territories legislation—which is about the status of the territories legislation and the capacity, or otherwise, of the Commonwealth to override it—has of itself nothing to do with the Marriage Act. Let us have a debate about the Marriage Act at some time, but let us not have the motivation of the coalition in this matter being to misrepresent in the broader community the position of the government on this matter. This is general legislation about the territories, and that is what we are debating.

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