Tim Watts: 'While I'm glad to be able to vote for this bill, I cannot take joy from it', Marriage Amendment Bill - 2017

5 December 2017, Canberra, Australia

I want to begin my remarks tonight by saying to all LGBTI Australians that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017 took so long. Every day that a person is forced to live in our society with lesser rights than their neighbour is an injustice. We perpetuated and perpetrated an injustice on LGBTIQ Australians for far, far too long.

It is right that the parliament will this week vote to extend equality before the law to LGBTIQ couples and their families. It is right that elected members of this place will vote to afford the most basic of dignities to LGBTIQ Australians: the recognition that their relationships are just as loving, that their relationships are just as meaningful and that their relationships are just as committed as anyone else's.

I'm sorry, too, for what this parliament put LGBTIQ Australians through to get to this vote. I take responsibility for the inaction of previous Labor governments on this issue during our time in office, recognising the efforts of the member for Whitlam in introducing the 2012 marriage equality private member's bill and the 42 members of parliament, including the Leader of the Opposition, who voted for it. I recognise also the extraordinary work of people like Senator Penny Wong, who worked assiduously within party forums for many years to change Labor Party policy on this issue so that when marriage equality passes in this parliament this week it will do so with more votes from the Labor Party than any other party—but recognising our responsibility for failing to get it done in the past.

I'm sorry that LGBTIQ Australians were forced by this parliament to submit themselves, to submit their rights as equal members of our society, to a national public debate and opinion poll before we could get them to this point in this place. For these reasons, while I'm glad to be able to vote for this bill, I cannot take joy from it. Historians will note the public celebrations following the announcement of the results of this survey, celebrations that the Prime Minister had the good sense to realise that he would not be welcome at. But, in doing so, they will miss a deeper truth of this period in our history. Australians who support justice, equality and human dignity celebrated this result because the alternative would have been unimaginably painful. We celebrate it because a process that inflicted totally unnecessary pain and suffering on LGBTIQ Australians and their families would have re-traumatised these Australians had the result been in the negative. We celebrate it because the next generation of LGBTIQ kids will not have to go through a similar national debate on the worth of themselves and their families.

But these celebrations obscured the hurt, confusion and anxiety that I saw my LGBTIQ friends and family had been put through in this ghoulish process. History should record the repulsion that many of us felt at seeing the Prime Minister take credit for these celebrations while denying the suffering that he chose to inflict on LGBTIQ Australians and their families. I want to give these deeply mixed feelings a voice in this debate today. To this end I want the Hansard to record for posterity the reflections of a comedian who I admire, Rebecca Shaw, and her experience of this process. Bec wrote:

I thought that hearing that the Yes side had won would make me feel happy; that perhaps the months of tension and anger that had built up in my body would dissipate. But the instant I heard those words, I felt my stomach knot further. I turned to my group, more subdued than most of the people around me. I hugged my friends, holding on quietly and for a long time. One looked at me from under her glasses; her face was solemn, but I saw tears streaming down her face. Another was shaking their head angrily. Around me, people were smiling and hugging; … I saw an old couple embrace tearfully. I cried a bit, then – how could I not? But the knot didn't budge.

I can't speak on the perspective of an LGBTIQ person myself, but I can feel this knot in my stomach in this debate today, and I could feel it coming in the lead-up to the results.

I knew I wouldn't be in the mood to celebrate on the day of the results, so I had accepted an invitation to speak at the graduation ceremony of my old high school on the day before. I was optimistic for my old school in regional Queensland, in Toowoomba, which, it was clear to me, was far more enlightened today than it was when I was there 20 years ago. The school now had LGBTIQ kids and transitioning kids, things that were simply denied when I was at the school. But my optimism turned to bitterness when, watching the results, a 'no' result was returned for the seat of Groom in the survey. I felt for those kids as the 'no' result was returned. How did this unnecessary public process of judgement make them feel, this public confirmation of their worst fears about the community that they lived in? What message does this send to an LGBTIQ kid in that community?

It is clear we still have a long path to walk to ensuring that all LGBTIQ Australians throughout our country are afforded recognition as fully equal members of our society. For those who inflicted this process on Australia, I can only express my hope that future governments have the good sense and the political courage not to let it loose on the human rights of other groups. Regardless, the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party will have to live with the question of why they forced LGBTIQ Australians to submit their rights, their equality as citizens, to a national debate when no other race or religious group has been forced to do the same without constitutional requirement. This is the Prime Minister's legacy in this debate.

All of us in this place should make amends for the way that we have failed LGBTIQ Australians leading up to this bill by ensuring that we do not perpetrate similar injustices in future, that we do not commit similar failures of empathy. The relationships of future generations of LGBTIQ Australians won't be subject to legal discrimination, but we will need to continue to ensure that they do not confront social and other forms of discrimination. The reactionaries in our society who seek to exploit and accentuate anxieties about people who are perceived to be different will move on to a new target.

The parliament and the public have so clearly rejected homophobia. The tiny minority of people who think that religion is like a toy plastic sheriff's badge to wave at other people rather than a source of personal moral reflection will be tutting their fingers at someone else soon enough. Indeed, it is clear from the way that the 'no' campaign desperately tried to make the marriage equality survey about anything other than marriage between LGBTIQ Australians that the reactionaries have already chosen their new target—trans kids. The disgracefully dishonest and fact-free campaign against the Safe Schools program comprehensively detailed by Ben Law in his tour de force quarterly essay is a sign of things to come on this front. So, to the MPs who are professing to a Damoclean conversion on marriage equality and recognising the equal human dignity of gay and lesbian Australians in the chamber this week: I implore you not to make the same mistake over again with trans Australians. To the trans Australians and their families watching this debate with trepidation, I want to say that I see you and I will not abandon you.

I have a few happier words to end on. I want to thank and pay tribute to all of the campaigners who ensured that Australia said yes in this survey. Thank you to The Equality Campaign, Australians for Marriage Equality, GetUp! and the Australian trade union movement, particularly the Victorian Trades Hall Council. I want to particularly acknowledge the work of a constituent of mine, Wil Stracke, who led the trades hall campaign and acquired the most famous fence in Australia in the process. Your mum would have been proud, mate. Also I want to thank Raymond Pham for coordinating my office's 'yes' campaign in Gellibrand. In a perfect world, we could have done without their good deeds, but we are thankful for them regardless.

Finally, I want to thank all of those LGBTIQ Australians who lost people that they loved during the long, long wait for this day. When the Western Bulldogs won the flag after a 62-year drought, one of the most common things that I heard at the family day at Whitten Oval the day after the premiership was people wishing that they could have shared this long-anticipated moment of happiness with a loved one who never got to see the day. Lovers, family and friends will be feeling the same way about the vote in this parliament: lovers who never got to propose to the person they love; parents who never got to walk their child down the aisle; children who didn't have a parent there to walk them down the aisle; and friends who never believed that this day of equality would come. The happiness of the breakthrough moment after so long makes the feeling of these losses freshly painful. Many people in the LGBTIQ community and their family members will be feeling this way at the moment. I know I'm feeling this way. I'm thinking of those members of my family who are in the same boat.

Tony Burke: 'Penny just uttered the words, 'Say black instead of gay and hear how it sounds.'', Marriage Amendment Bill speech - 2017

5 December 2017, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

There would be no greater contrast than me speaking immediately after the member for Melbourne. While his electorate had the highest 'yes' vote in the country, mine had the second highest 'no' vote in the country.

A few things have astonished me since then—first of all, the number of people who were surprised that that was the case. I have always had the understanding that, in my electorate, the opinion polls are roughly the reverse of what they are nationally. Secondly, I was astonished by the number of people who have said, as a democratic principle, I was obliged to break an election commitment as a result of the postal ballot. It's the first time I've ever heard the breaking of an election commitment being described as a democratic principle, but that's how a number of people have sought to put it.

Last time this issue was raised in the Parliament, I did vote no. Last time this issue was raised in the Parliament, I did not speak. In fact, in the many hours of debate we've had on marriage equality, this is the first time I've come to the dispatch box. When we first dealt with a marriage equality bill, there had been a resolution that the member for Melbourne just referred to in his speech, where we were told, and it was resolved, that we should consult with our electorates and, having consulted, we should vote accordingly. That meant a very different thing in my part of Sydney to what it meant in many parts of Australia. But, after that vote had taken place, we had a discussion within the cabinet room about marriage equality, and different people were putting their views as to why they'd voted particular ways.

I've checked with Senator Penny Wong that she's okay with me saying this. I would never give up something that was said in the cabinet room, but, only yesterday, she let me know that she is okay with it being repeated. At the end of that discussion in the cabinet room, where different people had put different views, we were about to move to the next item on the agenda and, in a very soft, gentle but clearly audible voice, Penny just uttered the words, 'Say black instead of gay and hear how it sounds.'

I can't think of a single sentence that has had a deeper effect on me than the words that Penny Wong said in the cabinet room—'Say black instead of gay and hear how it sounds'—not only because of the emotion of hearing those words but also because, when you think about my electorate, my part of Sydney does know discrimination.

The people in my part of Sydney don't know terribly well the discrimination that this legislation seeks to fix, but they know discrimination. When discrimination on the basis of race is happening, including from some prominent people at the other end of this building, my electorate gets targeted full-on. When there's discrimination against people on the basis of their faith, my electorate gets targeted absolutely.

They need someone who will fight discrimination and will win. They don't need someone who will run some sort of argument that some forms of discrimination are okay and others aren't. If I'm going to be true to the needs of my electorate, of my part of Sydney, of my neighbours and of that little three-kilometre circle that I've lived inside all my life, where most of the rest of the people have travelled around the world to be there, they need someone who will fight discrimination fearlessly because, on national polls, in my part of Sydney, the people who get discriminated against are never in the majority. So, if I'm willing to defend them as minorities, I can't pick and choose.

Within my part of Sydney, there are census figures which can't be true. In my suburb of Punchbowl, there are something like 4,000 coupled households and yet only eight identify as same-sex. You look at the statistics around the rest of the country and you think, 'What could that mean?' It means a whole lot of people move out, it means a whole lot of people just don't identify and it also means a lot of people, no doubt, find themselves in terribly unhappy heterosexual relationships.

It would manifest itself in a number of ways. But, ultimately, it also means that there are young people in my part of Sydney who, on top of the religious discrimination and on top of the discrimination on the basis of their race and ethnic origin, cop this one too. For heaven's sake, I'm not going to leave them on their own. We can't have a situation where there is a credible argument that says, 'Because you represent a multicultural community, there is a form of discrimination that you must endorse.' I can't be party to that.

On the amendments that have been put forward and that have been flagged: I indicated before any amendments were proposed in any way that I would be opposing them. That includes amendments that the member for Melbourne will put, which will come from one direction, and the amendments that the member for Warringah will put, which come from another. I indicated that I would oppose them for a very simple principle: if this House approves marriage equality in a different form to the Senate we run a very real likelihood that we will get a dispute between the houses, and where we are dealing with conscience votes we have no way of resolving that.

If we go through the entire process that the postal ballot was about and we get to the end of this year—after the public have been forced through what they've been forced through and after the affected community have gone through what they've gone through—and we still don't get it done, the Australian people will have every right to be deeply frustrated and sick to death of this place. There will be some amendments that will have a level of merit, I have no doubt, from one side or the other, but to contemplate this not getting done I think is truly unthinkable.

It's also the case that some of the amendments that have been put to me by some people locally, who I deeply respect, are amendments that defend principles which I agree with. They are principles which I do not believe are in the slightest way put at risk by this legislation. This legislation is not the first time that the Marriage Act has presented different definitions to those of the Christian faith, or the Buddhist faith or the Muslim faith.

In fact, for the entire history of this act, it has never been an exact match to any form of religious marriage. Therefore, I don't for the life of me see how people will suddenly be able to stop observing their religious beliefs. I don't see how charities will suddenly have a problem when they already have a view of marriage that doesn't match the Marriage Act. I can't for the life of me see how these problems will arise and, therefore, I can only form the view that there are some people, whether they are inside the Parliament or without it and have been part of the 'no' lobby, are simply trying to play a game of messaging. I don't see why the Parliament should be part of that.

So, if we ended up with a clear question and I thought there were a threat to people being able to preach their religion in their temples, in their synagogues, in their prayer rooms or in their mosques—if I thought that was going to be at threat—then I would support legislation that dealt with that. If there is ever legislation that puts that at threat, I'll be speaking pretty loudly against it. This legislation doesn't; it absolutely doesn't. It is disingenuous for people in this House, who deal with legislation as the core business of what we do, to pretend for a minute that those issues are at threat.

I have always been conscious of the fact that the forms of discrimination and hate speech that I have dedicated most of my political career to opposing are forms of discrimination I will never experience. I'll never know what it's like to travel on the train and be abused by a stranger for what I wear. I'll never know what it's like to be in the playground and to be pushed around by other kids because of the colour of my skin. Nor will I know in my life what it's like to be considered different from other people, and less than other people, because of who I love.

But how can I defend the person who gets abused on the train and defend the child in the school playground, and not also defend the person who is discriminated against on the basis of who they love?

My electorate, my part of Sydney, needs someone who can. My part of Sydney needs someone who can fight discrimination fearlessly and win.

I'll be voting yes. There will be plenty of people in my electorate who are disappointed by that, but no-one will be surprised and no-one will see it as anything other than me being completely consistent with the person who presented to them and who they chose to elect.