The end of the line
May 4th, 2008 by Rebecca
Two hours ago, ACT Attorney-General Simon Corbell caved to federal pressure, and announced that the Civil Partnerships Bill would be withdrawn. And so ends two years of hope that we might see, at least one day soon, civil unions in the Australian Capital Territory.
I’m crushed, although I’m not surprised, for the prospect of a federal override has been looming very large in recent weeks, and we were in the early stages of putting together a snap national campaign against it. It’s just a disgrace that when most of the West is moving towards gay marriage, and even the United States is moving towards civil unions, that we have a supposedly progressive federal government actively standing in the way here. I’m disappointed that even with a supportive territory government, we’ve been left with a substandard scheme that anoints our relationships as firmly second-class.
The ACT government deserves huge respect of taking us this far, but I have to say that I’m disappointed that Corbell chose to pull the bill in the end. Had it been passed, it would still have given us a few weeks to put the spotlight firmly on civil unions, and to run a national campaign on the issue. It would have ensured weeks of bad publicity for the federal government, would have seen the Greens inevitably force a Senate vote on the issue, and in the process, putting huge - and deserving - pressure on ACT Labor Senator Kate Lundy and lesbian Labor Senators Louise Pratt and Penny Wong. It also runs against the assurances we’d been given for months. Even if they’d ploughed on and forced the federal government into legislating for a registry scheme, it’d still have had the positive side-effect of giving the Northern Territory one too. Now that they’ve chosen to withdraw the bill, it’s effectively - and suddenly - over, and that’s heartbreaking.
So it hasn’t been a good afternoon. We hit the phones within minutes of the news breaking so at least we could get comment out there, and there’s going to be a snap action next Saturday to give the gay and lesbian community here one last chance to show outrage at the federal government. It’s still effectively all over though. Still, if there’s one thing that might come out of this; there’s been talk for a while of us morphing into a permanent LGBT rights organisation in the territory, and I think there’s enough energy left to make that happen.
And one last gripe?
It may have been the homophobia of Kevin Rudd and Robert McClelland that finally doomed the bill, but it certainly didn’t help that Croome and Wayne Morgan, two self-appointed spokespeople for this community, decided to go on a media blitz last week encouraging the ACT government to pull the ceremonial component of its scheme. The pair of you are an absolute disgrace, and you are no allies of ours.
Bastard coated bastards.
Bastaaaaards.
*applauds*
True dat about Morgan and Croombe… after all, this is what they were calling for, and they have much more media clout than we do.
Fuck Rudd. Hate the bastard.
I agree with everything you have said Rebecca! The Australian Labor Party is a disgrace! Fortunately, you have an election coming up in the ACT and I am sure many electors in the ACT will know exactly what to do and who to vote for on election day. I gave up on the ALP years ago, too many right-wing Catholics and the Left vote continually against all the things they supposedly support. People like Wong, Pratt and Lundy disgust me! Also, the country is soon to be filled with more Popery and ofcourse like Tony Blair, so many of the Laborites will be falling over themselves to be prostrate before the ruler of the world’s most evil empire.
Brenton: I don’t think it’s fair to aim this particular bullet at the ACT branch of the Labor Party. They’ve done about all they could to get this bill up, and it’s not their fault they’d been told if they proceeded it would be to a certain override. I’ll still be voting Green in October - but it’ll be over the government’s school closures, library closures, public transport cuts, and hopelessness at town planning rather than their efforts here.
But yeah, federal Labor? They can go die in a fire for all I care. I do hope this brings on a challenge to Senator Lundy’s preselection in 2010. It’s such a shame; she’s a really inspiring person to actually meet in person, but such a bloody hopeless and weak legislator; perhaps if she went back to the union movement her talents could actually be used to do good rather than, well, nothing.
Short of passing it.
I don’t think that’s fair either.
They would have been passing it in the face of a certain override, and there are a few considerations that need to be weighed up. It’s not the decision I’d have made, but I think it’s an understandable one all the same in the circumstances.
I’ve been the one all along pushing for a campaign focused near-entirely on getting the ACT government to bring the bill to the floor, and I stand by that, but at this point (in light of the federal government having made clear their absolute opposition to civil unions), I think the focus needs to be thrown entirely onto the them. Ultimately, the Rudd government is the final barrier to this reform, and they are the ones that need to be campaigned against in earnest.
As I stated on my blog, when I had passport problems the only politician on either side I had any support at all from was Malcolm Turnbull.
At least the Libs stab you in the front.
A cave-in to the ACL, who have been crowing over getting KRuddy to mimic Howard. And who lead the ACL - Brigadier Jim Wallace, former head of the SAS, the covert assassination and infiltration branch of the military. While it’s arguable that it may be necessary for a country to have a very secretive elite corps of highly trained (and eminently deniable) killers, running such an organisation is hardly what you’d call a Christian occupation, is it?
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