Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Marriage is a cultural institution of long standing, and the prospect of change is unsettling to many people. But we should remember that society is always changing, that it has undergone great change even in a nation as relatively young as ours, and that the changes we have made over the last 100 years or so in addressing discrimination on the basis of gender, race and sexual orientation, though in almost every instance slow, difficult and hard-won, have been profoundly beneficial.

In 1902 Australia became the first country in which women could both vote in federal elections and contest those elections as candidates. But it was not until 1962, only 50 years ago, that the Commonwealth Electoral Act extended the franchise to all Indigenous people. In the early part of the 20th century there were Commonwealth ordinances that restricted the marriage of Indigenous Australians, and in places like WA the permission of the Chief Protector was required before an Aboriginal person could marry a non-Aboriginal person. It was not until 1966 that we scrapped the rule that had forbidden the permanent employment of a married woman in the Commonwealth Public Service. It was not until the 1970s that the efforts of organisations like the Women's Electoral Lobby and the work of people like Jocelynne Scutt began to bring about legislative reform to address the common-law immunity for a man charged with the rape of his wife. Less than 50 years ago, a woman, by virtue of marriage, could not be a permanent employee of the Public Service and could be legally raped by her husband.

I cannot imagine anyone looking back at those circumstances and wanting to return to them today. But nor should we imagine that reform occurred easily. Some of these changes were fiercely resisted, and all of them took a long time to achieve, even after the terrible discrimination that they represented had been identified, and even though removing that discrimination now seems a matter of plainest common sense. The restrictions on who could marry whom and the abrogation of certain rights or protections within marriage did not stand alone as discrete instances of discrimination but rather stood as manifestations of a widespread discriminatory malaise that applied to Australian women and Indigenous Australians.

Within a marriage—as within society as a whole and its laws, institutions and culture—Australian women had fewer rights and lesser standing than men, and Indigenous people had fewer rights and lesser standing than non-Indigenous Australians. Despite the progress over the past 50 or 60 years, that broad inequality has not yet been fully erased. The same is true of gay men and women today. Same-sex couples being excluded from the opportunity to choose the category of relationship that we generally regard as representing the greatest degree of love and commitment is a form of pure discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. For that reason, it is illogical, unfair, intolerant and intolerable. Just as the discriminatory aspects of marriage as it applied to women and Indigenous Australians bespoke a larger and connected set of inequities, so does marriage discrimination against same-sex couples.

The journey we have made over the last 100 years, on the road to being a more tolerant, more cohesive and more egalitarian nation with each passing decade, has delivered benefits in which we have all shared. As part of that, the reforms introduced by this government in 2009 represented a huge leap in the legal and administrative recognition of same-sex couples, with all the rights, security and peace of mind that attend those changes. Those reforms built on the wider cultural shift that has occurred. While gay men and women have made their contributions to Australian life from the outset, for much of our history gay Australians, ordinary and extraordinary alike, have been personally, socially and economically constrained through intolerance and discrimination.

Once upon a time it would have been unusual if not practically impossible for a new senator, like Dean Smith, or for the leader of a political party, like Bob Brown, to be openly gay. It would have been unusual for a High Court justice, like Michael Kirby, to be openly gay or for a CEO, like Alan Joyce, or for a sportsperson, like Matthew Mitcham or Ian Roberts or Natalie Cook. It would have been just as unlikely and in many ways even more difficult for a bricklayer in Donnybrook, a school teacher in Hamilton Hill or a GP in Port Hedland, let alone a year 9 student or the captain of a school footy team. Those difficulties continue to be very real, because discrimination against gay Australians is very real and often very cruel. The consequences of that discrimination, especially for young people, include bullying, severe alienation, violence and mental illness.

Families and households come in all shapes and sizes and yet the most important things remain the same: the sense of belonging, love, happiness and wellbeing. Happiness shared is not happiness diluted. I support this bill and the change it represents because there is no reason or evidence to believe that sharing the benefits of marital commitment more widely heralds anything other than greater tolerance and stability and love in our community.

See this speech in context