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Australia to remove almost 100 anti-gay laws

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magsdee
Disabled
Joined in 2006
April 30, 2008, 14:58

Wednesday April 30, 12:22 PM

Australia to remove almost 100 anti-gay laws


SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia will remove almost 100 discriminatory laws preventing gay couples from sharing financial and social entitlements enjoyed by married and defacto couples, such as superannuation and pension death benefits.

But the legislative overhaul, to occur when the Labor government sits for its first budget session in May, will not change marriage laws to include gay marriages.


“The government believes that marriage is between a man and a woman so it won’t amend the marriage act,” Attorney-General Robert McClelland said on Wednesday in announcing the changes.

“But in all other areas that we’ve identified, the issue of discrimination against same-sex couples will be removed,” McClelland told reporters.


McClelland said the law changes, an election promise when Labor came to power in November 2007, should be fully introduced by the middle of 2009.


The law changes will affect tax, superannuation, social security, health, aged care, veterans’ payments, workers’ compensation and employment entitlements.

“Importantly, the reforms will also ensure children are not disadvantaged because of the structure of their family,” McClelland said in a statement.


Presently, gay couples have little or no rights to superannuation or pension death benefits if a partner dies, unlike married and defacto couples. The children of gay couples have little or no rights to such benefits if their parents die.


Tax benefits such as the dependent-spouse tax offset, housekeeper tax offset and invalid relative tax offset are not available to gay couples. The law changes will also affect labor laws that restrict gay couples from applying for carers’ leave, compassionate leave and parental leave.

But gay rights campaigners said discrimination against gay couples would not be fully eliminated until same-sex couples were allowed to legally marry.


“Until there’s full equality in Australian law, for same and opposite sex couples, discrimination continues, prejudice continues and we can’t allow that as a nation,” said Rodney Croome from the Australian Coalition for Equality.

“Gay and lesbian Australians will not be fully equal until we are allowed the right to marry the partner of our choice.”

orfeo
 
Joined in 2007
April 30, 2008, 17:59

Wow. It came early.


I was working on this until I changed jobs a couple of months ago. Everyone, please give a huge round of applause to my former colleagues who have been working their behinds off to make this happen – and who still are, there’s a while to go yet, until the laws actually get through Parliament. Signs are good, though, that the Opposition will support the laws and not block them in the Senate.


I don’t think most people who aren’t public servants can understand what it takes to change 100 laws. One can be difficult enough!


– Trevor

magsdee
Disabled
Joined in 2006
April 30, 2008, 18:58

Thanks for the insight Trevor, a massive round of applause for sure then. It is very exciting news indeed. It must have come as a great surprise to you, thanks for working on this for us all. 😀

orfeo
 
Joined in 2007
April 30, 2008, 20:22

Thanks for the insight Trevor, a massive round of applause for sure then. It is very exciting news indeed. It must have come as a great surprise to you, thanks for working on this for us all. 😀


I was expecting to this be in the Budget. Actually, it still will be (details of the cost effects, which will be both up and down depending on what area you look at, eg the Government will probably save money on social security but pay out more on Medicare). But I didn’t think there would be any kind of announcement before then.


There’s been plenty of news stories about this over the last 6 months or so, and Labor went to the election with a policy to do this. But this is the first time there’s been any clear announcement as to dates.


The ‘winter sittings’ start with the Budget on May 13 and run until 26 June, so introduction of the Bill into Parliament will be somewhere between those dates. That’s then we’ll have the full details (and no, I don’t already have ’em!).

Shantih Shantih Shantih
 
Joined in 2008
April 30, 2008, 22:22

Okay, I might just be exposing my ignorance here, but isn’t this kinda tantamount to allowing civil parterships? Or is that something completely different?

orfeo
 
Joined in 2007
April 30, 2008, 22:43

Okay, I might just be exposing my ignorance here, but isn’t this kinda tantamount to allowing civil parterships? Or is that something completely different?


Okay… let me be clear, some of this is just my opinion.


What this will mean is that a same-sex couple will be treated the same way as a heterosexual, de facto couple. That is, people who live together WITHOUT any formal piece of paper saying that they are a couple.


So, in theory this doesn’t do anything to damage the ‘special status’ of marriage.


The thing is (and this is definitely just my opinion!)… marriage has virtually no special status, legally, and hasn’t for years. Heterosexual de facto couples have almost exactly the same legal rights and obligations as married couples – and the only reason I say ‘almost’ is to cover myself, I don’t actually know off-hand of any instances where a married couple is entitled to something and a de facto couple isn’t.


So, in practical terms, this will pretty well put same-sex couples on the same basis as all heterosexual couples. What it won’t do is provide any of the symbolism or ceremony that could be involved in civil unions.

Shantih Shantih Shantih
 
Joined in 2008
April 30, 2008, 23:10

Ahhh…sneaky! 😀

Anthony Venn-Brown
 
Joined in 2005
May 1, 2008, 00:17

I just got a good press release on this from Australia marriage equality but i cant cut and paste it for some reason….when i hear back from them i’m sure you’ll enjoy reading this additional insight.


http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/

Desperate4Truth
 
Joined in 2008
May 1, 2008, 01:56

Well Good for Austrailia!!!! YAY!!! Looks like a step in the right direction!

I cant wait to only be an hour a way from Washington DC. There is so much change that needs to happen in the states and I cant wait to be right in the middle of it!

orfeo
 
Joined in 2007
May 1, 2008, 11:17

I just got a good press release on this from Australia marriage equality but i cant cut and paste it for some reason….when i hear back from them i’m sure you’ll enjoy reading this additional insight.


[url=http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/


]http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/


I’ll be really interested to read it, because…um… one of the stories I read last night had a quote from AME that was highly misleading, if not downright wrong, and suggested to me that they hadn’t really understood the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Report (HREOC) report last year that this all stems from.


Rather hope it’s not in their press release.
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