Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017. If people have been listening in, they would think that this is a bill solely about religious freedoms. This is a bill about marriage equality. Fundamentally, it's a bill that has been the subject of debate in this place on many occasions, and a bill that is the result of what I think is the courage and commitment of Senator Smith in bringing it forward, after having thought deeply about his position on marriage equality, changing his position and becoming an advocate for marriage equality.

This bill amends the restrictions that limit marriage in Australia to the union of a man and a woman. The bill allows two people the freedom to marry in Australia regardless of their sex or gender. The requirements for a legally valid marriage otherwise remain the same. If you listen to some of the debates that have been in here today, you would think this was the end of religious freedoms in this country. I will come back to that issue, but I want to go to the key issue that we're dealing with here—that is, for all Australians to be treated equally. For all Australians who love one another—whether that's in a male-female relationship, a male-male relationship or a female-female relationship—that is acceptable and always should have been acceptable. We should not be here now debating this. It should have been law in this country some years ago.

We've had long debates about this. I congratulate a number of people who have been pushing this forward over the period I have been involved in parliamentary politics: Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek, Anthony Albanese and Louise Pratt from the Labor side, who have pushed this bill continually and have advocated on behalf of same-sex couples; the members of Rainbow Labor, who have fought for fairness, justice and equality for all Australians; and Shelley Argent and the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays for helping to educate the public and politicians on the rights of gay and lesbian Australians.

Most importantly I thank the mother of a young gay man from Greystanes, who rang my office in 2009 seeking my support for marriage equality and who outlined to me the discrimination, bullying, violence and social exclusion faced by her son growing up as a young gay man in Western Sydney. I also thank the gay man who approached me around the same time in Albury-Wodonga to outline the challenges faced by gay men growing up in the sixties in regional Australia. It was these personal stories that convinced me as a backbench Labor senator to speak out against my own party's support for a policy that denied equal rights for all Australian citizens. I decided that love and commitment should be the test for marriage in Australia, not outdated and discriminatory acts of parliament.

As a result of this I attended a rally of about 2,000 Australians in support of marriage equality outside Sydney Town Hall in November 2010. I broke with party policy and indicated I would be supporting marriage equality at the upcoming national conference of the party. I did this because, in my previous life as a blue-collar worker and a union official, my union had always supported the rights of oppressed minorities in this country, and no-one was more oppressed than gay and lesbian Australians. I'm pleased to have played a small role—only a small role, with many others—in bringing together parliamentary support for marriage equality.

Unfortunately, it has taken too long to come to the position we're in today. The parliament should have done its job and provided equality to all Australians many years ago. Politicians should simply have done their job and dealt with the matter, without wasting over $120 million of public money on a divisive and unnecessary postal survey—$120 million of public money wasted on a survey that told us exactly what everyone knew: that the Australian public supports marriage equality.

I want to turn briefly to the strategy some conservative politicians are adopting in an attempt to delay marriage equality in this country. Arguing that religious freedoms will be affected by this bill beggars belief. In a country where religious institutions have significant economic and political power, to argue that providing equality to same-sex couples will result in religious discrimination is just unbelievable. I know a bit about religious discrimination, having been brought up in the west of Scotland. The divide between Catholics and Protestants when I was being brought up was huge. I married a Catholic, and I was brought up a Protestant. And I must tell you, it was not easy to go through this process with parts of my wife's family and my own family. It was one of the reasons I decided I'd had enough of that nonsense and would not have my kids brought up with religious discrimination and in such a divide. I was fortunate enough to have a trade and to be able to emigrate to Australia, where I took the view that a much more relaxed position was adopted between different religions in terms of marriage.

That proved to be true, but to listen to some of the contributions over the last couple of days on this bill would lead you to believe that the end of the world is nigh for those who have a religious faith in this country. I am an atheist, so I come to this with a different point of view from that of some of my fellow senators. I don't see that religion should impinge upon the rights of atheist Australians, Australians who are agnostics or Australians who do not have a spiritual faith or believe in some spiritual being. I know many, many people, as we all do, who have strong religious beliefs and who use those religious beliefs to try to guide their life, and many of them do that in a very productive and progressive manner. Others, when you hear some of the debate that goes on, use their religion to try to discriminate against individuals who want the same right as they have: to marry the person they love. The proposals we've heard today from Senator Paterson are not what I would consider to be appropriate in this debate.

This is a simple proposition that says that all Australians should be treated equally, that all Australians should have rights in the context of becoming married. The bill itself provides significant protections for those who are religiously minded or have religious views. It protects religious freedoms in relation to marriage. Ministers of religion will be able to refuse to solemnise a marriage, in conformity with their religion's doctrine, even though I can't understand why a gay Catholic can't be married in the Catholic Church. I can't understand that at all. If you are a practising Catholic or a practising Christian, I always thought the argument put forward by religious proponents was that religion was about tolerance and love—except if you're gay or a member of the LGBTIQ community. I don't get that. As an atheist, I just don't get it. It is unacceptable in my view to discriminate against the LGBTIQ community in relation to marriage, health support and help when they become old and infirm. It is not something that I can understand as being compatible with what people argue religion is about.

I want to look at the argument that religion is under this huge attack because of this bill. Religious organisations in this country are amongst the most powerful organisations in the country. They are amongst the richest organisations in the country. They are not there as defenceless bystanders in Australian political life. They are not there as defenceless bystanders in the Australian economy. They are big players in the economy. They are big players in the parliament.

I take the view that there should be the separation of politics and religion, but that's something that does not happen in this place. When we come together in the morning to commence parliament, and the Senate, we say prayers—I think the Catholics say a different prayer to the Protestants—and we get a different approach to this. I come along because it's part of the tradition. It's part of respect for the parliament and respect for other people's views. But religious people should not be telling me, an atheist, how I should live my life, how my children should live their lives and how my grandchildren should live their lives.

If you look at the New South Wales public school system, you see religious teaching in public schools in what should be a secular society. But we've got religious teaching in public schools. My grandkids, along with about 40 per cent of the other kids in the school, have to go away to a quiet room and do something on their own while religious teaching is taking place. I find that objectionable. It's a public school system in a secular country and my grandkids should not be stopped from getting an education because of religion.

Some senators today have the hide to say that religion will be forever changed. Religion has its fingers everywhere in this community, even in the public school system. We've got chaplains going into the public school system and they are not supposed to proselytise, but they're in there. We should have support for children based not on religion, but on their mental and physical health. That's the thing that should apply, not religion.

I don't accept the argument being put up that having marriage equality in this country will lead to the end of religious freedoms in this country. These powerful bishops, these powerful people, have been out there influencing politics in this country for as long as we've had an Australian state. They don't need protection, but the public, young kids, have needed protection from them in the past. I just don't get this argument that there will be an end of religion if this goes ahead. I want to indicate clearly that I won't be supporting any amendments to this bill. I want to indicate that I'm concerned that the government has thought it necessary to set up a special inquiry to look at religious freedoms in Australia. I hope it's a broad based inquiry and that my freedoms as an atheist are taken into account. The single biggest group in Australia is not Catholics, it is not Anglicans and it is not Presbyterians. It is people who have no religion. I belong to that group, and I don't want religion stuffed down my throat by anyone. It's unacceptable to me, and it should be unacceptable in this parliament. That's really what we've got coming here with these amendments: it's about imposing religious beliefs on the parliament of Australia to give benefits to religious organisations that should not be there in a secular society. If people want to practise a religion, they are free and entitled to practise their religion. This parliament should not be making it more difficult for people who are not religious to have no religion as the basis of their lives.

I have said before in this place that I've been married since 1971. I was offended when I heard Senator Brandis and others talking about the sanctity of marriage, that you can only have a decent marriage if it is sanctified by God or if it is done in the eyes of religion. I've been married for a long time, and my marriage is as good and as strong as any religious marriage in this country. We've had our ups and downs, as both religious people and non-religious people have, but I've got a strong marriage and a fantastic wife, whom I love dearly, and I object to it being treated as second-class because I was not married in a church or under some sanctified mumbo jumbo, as far as I am concerned.

So this is a big issue. It should not be simply about protection for religion. Religion is privileged in all areas of society in this country. The people who have not been privileged in this country, and who have certainly been placed in a position of deficient rights in this country, are the LGBTIQ community. I say it will now be a problem for some of the atheists in this country if we get more so-called religious freedoms, which is simply code to be able to discriminate against the LGBTIQ community. I've got some great friends in the churches, some fantastic political friends, who go out there with progressive views helping people. But just because you're in a religious position, it should not make you any better than anyone else in this country. It should not be about religious freedoms but about rights for everybody in this country. (Time expired)