Lies about Tasmanian registry

This letter was sent to the Australian LGBT media in early March 2008.

re: Tasmania's relationship registry

Dear Editor,

Gay Australia has been fed a lie and worse, swallowed it whole.

That lie is that Tasmania's relationship registry is a second-rate, watered-down scheme for relationship recognition, when the fact is it is the best civil union scheme on offer in Australia or anywhere in the world.

The great advantage of the Tasmanian model is that it is open to any two adults who love and care for each other regardless of the nature of their relationship. There are no longer married, de facto, same-sex or companionate partners in Tasmanian law. There are simply partners.

The principle behind the Tasmanian scheme is that ordinary people should be able to decide for themselves which of their personal relationships requires legal rights and protection, rather than having the government tell them only this or that type of relationship is worth recognising.

This sets the Tasmanian scheme far ahead of the "relationship registers" which the Federal and Victorian Governments' wrongly say are consistent with Tasmania's.

The Tasmanian scheme is also superior to the ACT's proposed civil partnership scheme when it comes to the issue of "official ceremonies".

Some Tasmanian couples currently have ceremonies to mark the signing of their Deed of Relationship. These ceremonies carry exactly the same symbolic weight and lead to the same legal rights as those proposed under the ACT Civil partnership Bill. As qualified marriage celebrants and State Justices of the Peace, the officials at Tasmania's ceremonies are in a unique position to be able to celebrate and solemnise the legal recognition of loving unions.

What differs between Tasmania and what is proposed in the ACT is that Tasmanian couples are not forced, like they will be in the ACT, to have a ceremony or parrot lines written by a government official, in order to access official rights and recognition.

In summary, the Tasmanian model is about deciding for yourself how you obtain state recognition and with whom.

It's this important principle other Australian governments should be building on, instead of proposing schemes because they look more or less like marriage.

Yours Sincerely,
Wayne Morgan
Senior Lecturer in Law
Australian National University College of Law
Canberra, 0200
0411 134 899

Peter Power
Convenor, InDeed
(Tasmanian Association of Recognised Partners)
1 Gillies Rd, St Marys, 7215
0417 017 105