House of Representatives on Thursday 7th December 2017

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I'm going to sum up now and I don't want to delay this any longer. I want to restate the purpose of the amendments. They seek to reconcile all Australians who hold a differing view on marriage. We are balancing the right of same-sex couples to marry with those who hold traditional views of marriage, either through conscientious belief or religious conviction. Those rights will begin to interact as soon as the legislation before us enters into law. I think clear boundaries are important. My good colleague the member for North Sydney mentioned that there are no protections for same-sex couples in the marriage bill—the Smith bill. That's true, but that's because the Australian people have voted to legalise same-sex marriage—that is the prevailing view, by 60 per cent. It was a decisive victory and I acknowledge that publicly.

The task, especially in liberal democracies, is always to protect the minority view and uphold the dignity and worth of all Australians. I gather by the thundering silence after my speech and the rapturous applause that the member for Melbourne received that we do have many LGBTIQ Australians in the gallery today. I welcome you here.

Mr Tim Wilson: And in the House.

Mr HASTIE: It's a big day for you—and in House, as the member for Goldstein just said. I acknowledge that many of you have suffered discrimination over the years—bullying and all sorts of treatment. I know Rodney Croome, Tom Snow and others have fought hard to balance the playing field, and that will be realised today with the passage of this bill, which will surely happen. I want to say that, yes, 38 per cent of Australians voted to retain traditional marriage, but that doesn't mean that their rights should not be protected. It's in that spirit that these amendments are put.

My last point: I have a series of letters which I seek to table. One is from the archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies. One is from 38 faith leaders writing to the Prime Minister and the opposition leader. One is from the Presbyterian Church of Australia expressing concern about their schools in the electorates of Wentworth, Reid, New England, Reid, Calare, Cowper, Page, Hunter, Wannon, Kooyong, Chisholm, Aston, La Trobe and Groom. I have a statement from the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia, a letter from Christian Schools Australia, a letter from the Australian Association of Christian Schools and a letter from the Free Reformed School Association in WA, which has schools in Burt, Brand, Canning and Forrest. All of them are concerned about the ability of those schools to teach in accordance with their religious convictions insofar as marriage is concerned. I seek leave to table those letters.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Goodenough ): Is leave granted?

Mr Giles: No.

Mr Burke: No.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is not granted.

Mr Pyne: I was going to say that leave is granted, because, as the Manager of Opposition Business pointed out before, in a conscience vote, he doesn't speak for the entire opposition and I don't speak for the entire government. Therefore, every member of the House is king—or queen, if you like—in questions of whether leave should be granted. In the absence of anybody else granting leave, I was going to say that leave is granted because the letters—unless they're offensive letters, and I don't think the archbishop of Sydney would write an offensive letter—should be able to be tabled.

Mr Burke: I want to make clear—I wasn't going to speak—I'd made the statement earlier that I wasn't able to make a decision on behalf of the whole of the opposition in terms of leave on these issues. I certainly didn't object, but I understand someone did.

Mr HASTIE: Deputy Speaker, I assume that you're passively allowing leave, and therefore I table them.

Honourable members interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leave is not granted.

The SPEAKER: The question is that the amendments moved by the member for Canning be agreed to.