A joint house, cross-party committee today called for an immediate end to financial and work-related discrimination faced by same-sex couples under national laws.
The chair of the ad hoc parliamentary committee, Democrats leader Senator Lyn Allison, today tabled the report into the discrimination, which found that reform is both necessary and urgent.
“MPs from a broad political spectrum now understand the need to remove discrimination. Gay inequality has, to a large extent, become a mainstream concern,” said Senator Allison.
The report, Entitled to Equality, recommends that the Parliament pass the Australian Democrats Same-Sex: Same Entitlements Bill 2007 as a matter of urgency.
The bill implements the recommendations of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report Same-Sex: Same Entitlements, which identified 58 laws that deny same-sex couples equal entitlements.
The committee expressed strong hope that “one day in the not-too-distant future, same-sex couples will be treated as equal before the law. To treat people differently simply because of who they love is just not fair.”
Committee members were Senator Allison (as chair), all other Democrats Senators, Liberal MPs Warren Entsch and Dr Mal Washer, ALP Senators Moore, Webber and Brown and Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce.
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