Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I said in this place the other day that, given this question has been before society now for decades, this place and the other place should not rush with undue haste simply because there are two weeks left. I, too, want to see this matter resolved by the end of the year. I have made the statement, and since reaffirmed it, that if the Australian people indicated that they wanted a change to the Marriage Act I would support that, subject to the details around these basic protections that so many of us want.

So many Australians—five million of them, of course—didn't support the 'yes' case on this occasion. I have spoken to a lot of people in my circle and in my capacity as a senator. I think it's fair to say that some people who voted no were not so concerned about the fact that gay people would be allowed to marry at the other end of the process; they were concerned about an absence of any detail around the protections that may be afforded them. So many said, 'I really don't care what two people want to do; it's their private business.' They indicated that—this is a position I support entirely—government has no place in the sexuality or the sexual lives of consenting adults. I've held that view for a very long period of time.

This is no longer a question about a debate allowing two people to marry. Even those of us who are proceeding cautiously and have a view around these protection issues and some amendments have effectively conceded that the Australian people have spoken and that the effort of both this chamber and the House of Representatives ought to be to give effect now to what the Australian people have said. But this isn't about that. I have listened carefully to all of the speeches, and so much of it has been about the support of the question on the Marriage Act, but it's no longer about that; it's about a series of very sensible, I think, amendments that are being proposed and will be presented during the course of our debate on this bill.

The first, I think, is a very simple amendment and I don't understand why it would be resisted. We have a situation where we want to change the Marriage Act and there is no reason why it could not identify marriage between a man and a woman, as has been traditional and held dear for so many people, as well as exercising the power for two people of the same sex to marry. In fact, the Supreme Court decision that gave effect to gay marriage in the United States talked about marriage in part of the ruling. It said:

Marriage, in their view, is by its nature a gender-differentiated union of man and woman. This view long has been held—and continues to be held—in good faith by reasonable and sincere people here and throughout the world.

That's the consideration of the Supreme Court's majority decision in 2015. So one of the first amendments on which many in this place will be seeking to have the support of the chamber will be to recognise and make changes to the Marriage Act to allow for same-gender marriage but at the same time include equally a preservation of the definition that marriage is between a man and a woman.

I find it difficult to understand why anyone in this place would resist freedoms to express traditional beliefs without fear of vilification laws provided that the expression does not threaten or harass a person or group of persons. That's a fairly simple proposition. We can't say that we have religious freedoms in this country that allow us to express all of our religious beliefs, except one, now changed by the potential changes to the Marriage Act. You can't do that. If we are to give freedom of expression of traditional beliefs, it must be unconditional—and nobody wanting these amendments supports any expression that threatens or harasses a person or group of persons.

One of the amendments is freedom from being required to express, associate with or endorse a statement or opinion about marriage that is inconsistent with a person's or organisation's genuine religious or conscientious convictions about marriage. Now, I'm not about to start citing all the examples that have been provided, many of them in the contributions prior to mine by other senators. But where could resistance come? Where could resistance come, in a fair and reasonable argument, that we deny people the freedom from being able to express, associate with or endorse a statement or an opinion about marriage that is inconsistent with a person's or organisation's genuine religious or conscientious convictions about marriage? Just as the government has no place in the bedroom, it has no place in starting to create a regulatory environment—or an absence of protections, in this case—that prevents people from having that freedom.

One of the other propositions is an anti-detriment provision protecting individuals and organisations with a traditional marriage belief from unfavourable treatment by public authorities. Many examples have been cited in this place. And remember that at the last census, in 2016, about 70 per cent of Australians identified as religious—mostly Christian, Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist. It's clear that many of those people voted yes for marriage equality. But they did not do so on the basis that it might open up an environment where their freedoms to express their religious beliefs would be impaired. As I understand it, the North Melbourne council in Victoria is giving particular benefits to people of the LGBTIQ community and not to those who are engaged in traditional marriage. There were instances where another council had indicated that applicants for public funding within their community would need to demonstrate that they previously had a body of work around supporting the LGBTIQ community before they'd be considered for funding.

The Australian Medical Association, much divided over this issue, used their resources to lobby members of parliament to support a 'yes' case. I wrote back to the AMA and I inquired. I said, 'I've been a senator for four years, and I haven't heard from you on other important issues such as domestic violence and inadequate health services in rural Australia.' I listed about six or seven issues where, if they had positive policies to solve those issues, none of them had been shared with me. I had not been lobbied before. Again, we've seen this with corporate Australia using its power in many instances to influence, in a way, against the 'no' vote in this country. Corporations have been using their funding in many instances against what may well have been the majority will of their shareholders and their customer base.

Another protection sought, of course, is for religious bodies in schools to act in accordance with traditional marriage belief. How can that be resisted? In no instance do I advocate, nor does anyone advocating these amendments advocate, that any of those protections should open up the possibility for any person, group or organisation to behave in a manner that would threaten or harass a person or persons.

Then we come down to the issue of protection of rights of parents, until their children reach the age of majority, with respect to teachings within the schools. This has to be one of the most fundamental rights of parents who are charged with the guardianship of their children: to make a determination of what their children would be exposed to in education, not just around some of these issues of social contest but in a very general sense. We're seeing manoeuvres now where there is resistance to the prospect that we would give parents the right to, for example, withdraw their children from classes where material to be taught conflicts with their moral or religious beliefs. How can that be resisted? I don't understand how than can be resisted.

We recently, of course, over the last couple of years, had a battle over the Safe Schools Program. I'm not one of these senators who say, 'I've talked to hundreds and hundreds of people and had thousands of emails,' but, to the extent that I've had conversations with dozens upon dozens of parents about the Safe Schools Program, they indicated to me, quite properly, that as a school community they ought to have the right to veto the introduction of education modules, if you want to even call them that, into their schools, and then, notwithstanding that, that they would have the right to make decisions about their children not being exposed to educational material that did not fit with their value system, their moral system or their religious conscientious beliefs.

Civil celebrants are the subject of another amendment. They are not ministers of religion, but many people who are attracted to the professional role of a civil celebrant themselves, by nature, come from a Christian background. But they afford a service to people to get married on the basis that it is not a religious service. It doesn't mean that they don't conscientiously object to the marriage of two same-gender people. They ought to be afforded a protection to be able to do that.

I suspect that in the fullness of time, as generations pass, this will be a bit like when we crossed over into decimal currency. There was that lovely letter to the editor where some old lady said, 'Why couldn't they have held off on making this transition until all of us old people have died?' I think, in the fullness of time, the need for protections will lessen. But right now we've had five million Australians—and I'm not going to start playing with the figures and add back, subtract and multiply; five million is enough—who have indicated 'no' on the question of same-gender marriage. It could well be argued that most of them, if not all of them, would have a stronger view about the need for some of these protections to allow them and our society to transition with the adoption of this inevitable legislation, of this inevitable change to the Marriage Act, in a manner that doesn't cause disruption.

I said here on the day the bill was introduced that it is our duty now to go cautiously and steadily—and I don't mean measured in weeks; it could only necessarily be in days as we properly consider some adjustments to this bill—so that the end product unites Australians and doesn't have the potential to divide them.