Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock has called for community consultation into whether same-sex couples want to have equal rights and responsibilities under the law. Ruddock has implied that some same-sex couples may not want equality because of potential benefits derived from not being recognised as couples, particularly in terms of social security.
‘If Ruddock wants a community consultation on relationship recognition, then we’ve already done it for him. Our consultation with over 1,300 people – the largest in Australia to date – found that same-sex couples overwhelming support full equality across all areas of the law’, said Ghassan Kassisieh, spokesperson for the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby.
‘Same-sex couples don’t want to pick and choose the bits of the law they like and don’t like. They just want a fair deal – to be treated the same as everybody else’.
The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby Consultation on relationship recognition recommended a 12-month phase in period for social security reforms, to allow couples that would be adversely affected by the changes time to adjust.
‘This is simply a delaying tactic. If Ruddock is serious about financial disadvantages, then he would reform tax, super, family and Medicare laws that currently place higher financial burdens on same-sex couples’.
Same-sex couples are denied access to the Family Court resulting in the extra costs of going through two separate court systems on the breakdown of a relationship. Same-sex couples are denied a full gamete of couple-based rebates, concessions and pensions that would otherwise be available to them if they were opposite-sex.
The results of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby’s consultation, All Love is Equal … Isn’t It?, is available on their website.
