ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Senator B. Brown, Australian Greens
The Sexuality Discrimination Bill goes a long way towards addressing
many of the concerns of bisexual, gay, and lesbian people in Australia.
It is a means of bringing the law into alignment with the changes in public
attitude that have seen sexual orientation towards members of one's own
sex more accepted and understood in the community as an aspect of human
diversity. Ignoring the debates about why some people have such orientation,
this bill reflects the understanding in the community that all societies
in all nations at all times have included people with such orientation,
and that these people have been valuable, and valued contributors to society.
It recognises that public opinion supports an end to tolerance of discrimination,
vilification and violence against this segment of society, and that there
is widespread support to end systemic discrimination embodied in law and
directed against this part of our community. We heard that the shift in
understanding and acceptance even goes as far as the many major Christian
churches, such as the Catholic, Anglican and Uniting Churches. They may
not support same-sex marriage, because this is seen as a quasi-religious
institution, but submissions by the Australian Conference of Catholic
Bishops have supported recognition of same-sex couples at least to the
extent that de facto heterosexual couples are recognised. A major
regret is that the main report of the committee did not make that broad
acceptance more obvious.
This Bill, and the majority report of the committee, is one of the first
attempts by Federal Parliament to actually address the issue of transgendered
people. The majority report does not fully represent the situation and
issues of transgendered people, although paradoxically, it deals better
with transsexuals than other transgendered people. This is reflected with
the focus on `stability' of gender identity. The point of inclusion of
transgendered people is so that people were not discriminated against
on the basis of their gender identification, or of someone else's perception
of their gender identity. Transsexuals are the group who most strongly
assert a definite gender identity, and go to great lengths through surgery,
hormone regimes, and other things to bring their appearance into line
with established gender identification. But they are only a part of the
transgendered community, which includes people for whom gender is ambivalent,
and people who are effectively, or biologically, of mixed gender, and
people with a gender-neutral identity. These people do face discrimination,
and a range of assumptions and presumptions and generalisations about
who they are, and how they behave. There should not be discrimination
against them simply because they seem different. Difference is not a crime.
This is the principle behind human rights and anti-discrimination legislation.
Those who innerly have a dissociation with identification of their gender
of birth represent a diversity of experience, identification and solutions
to their personal issues. As long as what they do harms no-one, there
should be no discrimination directed against them.
I support the initial broad approach of the Sexuality and Gender Identity
Discrimination Bill in respect of transgendered people, and call on others
to recognise that all people who are subject to discrimination on the
basis of simple difference need protection against such discrimination,
in an Australia which is all-embracing and caring.
I demur from recommendation 8, chapter 6. Serious discrimination and
disadvantage in matters relating to superannuation is well documented
and was dealt with by the Senate Select Committee on Superannuation in
1995. Asking the Senate Select Committee to revisit the matter reflects
unnecessary equivocation and delay. The committee's recommendation in
1995 was "that the superannuation regulations be amended so that
those in bona fide domestic relationships and single people are treated
in the same manner as married and de facto superannuants." It should
be adopted.
BOB BROWN
Australian Greens Senator for Tasmania
27 November 1997