It’s on - for real this time!
Apr 28th, 2008 by Rebecca
People who read this blog might have noticed that I’d become a bit worried over the last couple of months about where exactly the Stanhope government was going with the Civil Partnerships Bill - specifically, whether it was ever going to be taken to the floor of the Legislative Assembly. I was relieved last week when Stanhope publicly attacked the federal government over its attempts at preventing the bill’s passage, and today, he’s gone a step further - a very crucial step further.
He’s publicly stepped forward on Melbourne’s queer community radio station, JoyFM, and declared that’s going to pass the bill before the ACT election in October, establishing that as something of a deadline for negotiations with the federal government, and all but affirmed once and for all that he will not accept a registry scheme as a replacement for the bill.
I’m stoked. I did not see this coming. I’ve got the actual quotes from the transcript (or at least the important bits) over the fold (props to Heidi from Good Process for passing this around). I’ve put the most important pieces in italics.
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Jon Stanhope: I guess the position I’m now putting is that I have an election in five months time. This was an election promise which I’m duty bound to keep.
I intend to keep the promise that I made prior to the last election, to seek to achieve equality for gay and lesbian couples within the ACT in the creation and formation of their relationships under the law, and that remains our intention.
JoyFM interviewer: Does that mean you’re gong to bring this bill on, come hell or high water, before you go to election?
Jon Stanhope: Yes. But we hope to do that in agreement with the Commonwealth. We are negotiating with the Commonwealth . . . . . . .
JoyFM interviewer: Yes, but this timeline can’t go on forever can it . . . . . .
Jon Stanhope: No it can’t…………
JoyFM interviewer: There’s got to be some point where you say, negotiations gone on long enough, what sort of deadlines are you setting on this?
Jon Stanhope: Well the ultimate deadline for me is that we determined we will legislate before our next election. Our next election - we have four year fixed terms - is on the 18th of October, we go into caretaker a month before that.My intention is that we will reintroduce and debate the legislation, I hope it’s legislation that we’ve been able to agree with the Commonwealth on, but I’m hoping that will occur in the next two or three months at the latest.
We don’t support [the relationships register] model, and we won’t compromise on the position we’ve put to this electorate.
JoyFM interviewer: But even if you don’t come to an agreement with them, you’ll still bring it on?
Jon Stanhope: Yes. Yes we will. We will legislate, but at this stage we haven’t determined the final form.
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It seems as if, for the first time in months, we have a clear position of where the ACT is heading. If this is anything to go by, we can expect the Civil Partnerships Bill to be law in the territory by September; that we can finally feel safe that a backdown to a relationship registry is not on the cards; and that while further amendments are still very possible, they’re unlikely to severely tamper with the ceremonial element of the bill, which is so at the heart of the current battle.
Jon Stanhope, you’ve done good.