16 December 2006

The Cadaver says "no" to civil unions

| johnboy
Join the conversation
18

There’s a lot of things the Ministers of the Stanhope Government aren’t very good at. Things like warning of impending danger, keeping their phones on when they’re the acting emergency services minister, staying out of mental institutions, running hospitals, urban planning, building roads, protecting children, taking responsibility, balancing budgets, and keeping schools open. [Whoops! Forgot not getting caught DUI!]

On the other hand they are very good at annoying John Howard’s Commonwealth Government. In Canberra that’s probably enough.

The ABC reports that the Federal Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock, has announced he’s still not happy with our civil unions legislation. So we can expect another exchange of bitter words and Our Brave Leader standing up for the oppressed minority before the inevitable exercise of federal power crushes the legislation, and with it the hopes and dreams of hundreds of couples.

Did our government consider producing an exposure draft of the legislation and sending a copy to the big house for comment? The sort of thing that adult legislators might do?

Assuming they actually wanted to get something done rather than grandstanding on the issue?

Does the gay and lesbian community like being cynically used as a football when a real outcome could be achieved?

Join the conversation

18
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

You may say that, but I used to give money to dead people.

There’s nothing like efficiency in taxpayer resources giving your environmental intent from the grave, and since you didn’t give a shit about the environment while you were alive, do it while you’re dead.

Not only that, ask the government to give you the money to do it, I suppose the benefit there is you can’t call up to complain about the waste of resources, on account of you being dead and all.

Absent Diane2:13 pm 18 Dec 06

its not about what goes on in the privacy of peoples homes.

For some it so they can have the same rights as everyone else.

For me it is so we can enforce that we are secular society that won’t have nonsensical laws forced down our throat in the name of some imaginary dude named roger the squirrel or whatever.

You don’t want to hear the gory details of my Super ?

I must say I’m shocked.

An acquiatance of mine recently divorced his wife, on account of her sleeping with one of his business partners. For all her obvious educational qualities (horse riding spoilt blonde girl from Batemans or similar), she was the receptionist in the office, and they had no children.

She is now a multi-millionaire.

The inequality of the ‘system’ is not centred around G&L, or Hetro, or anything else for that matter other than the lawyer who sends the bills.

I still fail to see why it’s such an issue, it’s like eating at that vegetarian restraunt in Dickson that does up all the food so that it’s like meat (infact it’s sometimes hard to determine the difference). Still got no point to it does it ?

(and the vegetarians then complain that they choose to not eat meat for insert reason here, and that it’s silly to dress up a vegetarian item as a meat product).

If you want your super to go to your pillow buddy, write a will, start a trust, whatever.

Yes I’m married, I also need to write a will, start a trust, whatever, to make sure what I want to happen, happens. Big deal, I’m already over it.

Simto

I didn’t vote for him but he is still my elected representative, hence the embarrassment

Maelinar, you’ve mentioned your wife and your kid at least once on this site. Which means that you’ve mentioned exactly as much as anybody who wants a civil union will be mentioning about their private life (or, actually, slightly less).

If they were spilling out precise technical details of which parts of their bodies were coming into which other parts, then, yep, that’d be icky. But that’s not what civil partnerships are about.

I used to be a labour voter, now I’m not.

I’m thinking of helping the Democrats out with my next chance at putting my 2 cents worth in, but only on account of NSD being the hottest politician ever.

I would have voted green, but a certain troll remaining in a certain public house has negated any sympathy I had for that party, and the liberals can get fucked, I’ll never have anything but last place on preference voting for them.

Which pretty only leaves the socialists, but they have dissolved into anonymity even further than the crats.

I still don’t give a shit about the G&L civil union crap though. Without meaning to sound all anti-PC on everybody, I don’t really want to know what happens in the privacy of your own home, as I’m sure you don’t want to hear mine. Why do I keep hearing it though ?

Vg, with the greatest of respect, you probably weren’t going to vote for Stanhope anyway. So your embarassment or otherwise about him probably mean remarkably little to him.

i think doing something towards civil unions is better than doing nothing.

I doubt many locals appreciate being totally ignored at a Federal level because of the abject stupidity and self-worship of their CM.

He grandtanded about the terrorism laws then collapsed. Same deal with this issue last time. There are ways and means in politics. He should know them by now.

I feel embarassed by him

Absent Diane11:28 am 18 Dec 06

I think a lot of locals appreciate his grandstanding on issues such as terrorism/civil union – he seems to be a voice where there isn’t one. There are things that he and his gov falls short on, but with a doubt a liberal gov would make same mistakes with even less honesty.

I imagine he would be listened to far more readily on this topic if he hadn’t made such an ass clown of himself on previous issues. This time people are being made to pay for his previous grandstanding and stupidity.

People need to make sure they remember this when the next local election rolls around

Absent Diane11:10 am 18 Dec 06

Yeah I know, it concerns me a little. It’s frustrating that stanhope does it on various issues, but fed labour can’t provide a decent opposition.

Absent Diane10:12 am 18 Dec 06

just another case of the fed government showing what a bunch right winged fundamental christian faggots they are.

Standope made a goose of himself over the terrorism legislation. He is now reaping what he sowed there.

This is sad for people who would be affected by such legislation, but when you have a consistent idiot for a CM don’t expect the Feds to ever take him seriously. He continually marginalises himself and seriously wonders why he gets this type of response

I’d take mild issue with your last sentance – if a real satisfactory outcome could actually be achieved by negotiating points with Ruddock, then yes, acting like adults would be appropriate. However, there’s not a whole heap of evidence that anything will be looked at beyond “is it gay partnerships? Is it from the ACT? Can we bash it on the head immediately?”

In the battle for alternatives between “empty posturing that has no real result” and “long and sustained effort that has no real result either”, the first one at least has the benefit of being somewhat cheaper.

Exposure drafts have become increasingly common where legislation is complex, likely to have un-intended consequences, and requires agreement across multiple jurisdictions.

A good example would be Phillip Ruddock’s defamation reforms which began life as an appalling exposure draft and were whipped into a pretty decent set of laws (that Jon Stanhope was proud to call his own) over the course of some pretty learned debate through the submissions process.

Here where the Commonwealth has already show a willingness to veto the legislation it would have been sensible, if the purpose of the exercise was to actually get something on the statutes, to send an advance copy and discuss.

If they’d done an exposure draft phase calling for public comment they could even have got the Commonwealth to put on the public record exactly which parts they oppose and why. That could have had real value in the debate.

An exposure draft of any sort of legislation is a rare beast and generally used where political expediency is sought rather than good law.

The ACT legislature has the right to legislate on a range of matters including matters like, but excluding, marriage. The provisions called upon by the Commonwealth to usurp that power were set in place as safeguards to be used in the most extreme situations, but instead have become a tool of the Howard Governments philosophical agenda and a toadying Governor-General too gutless to wield the power vested in him and too eager to slide his tongue right up his masters chutney-chute – an act that in itself presents a curious inconsistency given Howard’s claim to a moral agenda … but I digress.

Last time around the Commonwealth fallaciously claimed that they had to quash the legally enacted ACT legislation because they were worried that it would be inconsistent with the Commonwealth Marriage Act. The Governor-General seemed to forget that we have a High Court to decide on such matters and when Howard called at Yarralumla, found time to sign the paperwork whilst on his knees engaged in other ‘cleaning’ duties.

So cutting to the chase, I say Standopes plan is a goer – if only -to provide another opportunity for the Prime Minister and the Governor-General to debase the role of the Queen’s representative.

While the process they’ve followed could be justifiably seen as childish or grandstanding, take a look from their side. Does anybody really expect Howard and his mob to permit any legislation which might in any way validate homosexual relationships when they have the power to stop it? Seriously?
So Stanhope et al could sit through weeks or months of negotiation and make no progress at all, and only be able to put out a media release saying “an agreement could not be reached”. Or they could put the legislation out in public for all to see and force the feds to repeatedly and forcibly override the “will of the democratically elected legislative assembly”. Both result in no change, but on drives the point home a hell of a lot harder.
You’re right, though – it might be nice to see this much effort spent on stuff that could actually work…

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.