George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate that the opposition welcomes these amendments and other government amendments that are to be moved subsequently in the committee stage. I will not detain the Senate for long, but these amendments in their various forms are responsive to the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, which inquired into the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws—General Law Reform) Bill 2008 and related bills and reported in October 2008. They are, in particular, responsive to additional comments made by the Liberal senators who served on that committee—Senator Guy Barnett, the deputy chair, Senator Mary Jo Fisher and Senator Russell Trood—which appear at page 41 and following pages of the report of that committee. We welcome the government’s acknowledgement that the legislation in its original form could be improved by amendments of the kind recommended by the Senate committee. For that reason, the opposition will be supporting those amendments.