ABS criticised on same-sex marriage

ABS criticised on same-sex marriage

Liberal Senator Eric Abetz has criticised the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for recording same-sex marriages in census data.

The ABS does not record such marriages as legal marriages but this year collected data on the number of same-sex couples who reported they were married.

During Senate Estimates hearings Abetz said the ABS should not bother evaluating such responses from same-sex couples when same-sex marriages were not recognised under Australian law and demanded to know which groups had sought the information.

“Why are we collecting the information on something which the law, for public policy reasons, does not recognise?,” Abetz asked.

Labor Senator Louise Pratt said Abetz needed to respect that the ABS was an independent authority.

“Through its consultations, the ABS has clearly and rightly formed the view that there is public interest in data regarding same-sex couples,” Pratt said.

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8 responses to “ABS criticised on same-sex marriage”

  1. Eric Abetz is a smarmy partisan prat whose version of Australia could be defined by the people he would rather exclude. Rarely have I ever heard this self-righteous troll contribute anything of merit to public debate, which just goes to show that the bar for becoming a Senator is not necessarily all that high.

  2. I believe that Eric Abetz voted against the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Tasmania. He is an ardent homophobe.

  3. “The ABS does not record such marriages as legal marriages but this year collected data on the number of same-sex couples who reported they were married.”

    Except the only place you could have reported that you were in a same-sex relationship/marriage was in the relationship to other household members section. People like me who are doing the whole long distance thing, or who don’t live in the same place as their partner for any number of other reasons, had no opportunity for having their relationship recognised/counted in the census. Whatever data they did collect will paint a thoroughly incomplete picture.

  4. People need to realise that in an Abbott regime, that this Senator will be a major and influential Minister! Abetz is one of the most extreme, right-wing Tasmanians and sits closely at the side of Tony Abbott in the Conservative Party. Truly frightening!

  5. Wow. Surely the good Senator understands that data is required for informed decision making? Recording this data allows the government to make decisions based on equality in services and rights provided. Or perhaps that’s the Senator’s problem? If there aren’t a trivial number, suddenly trying to ignore them, their rights and the validity of their presence and opinion becomes much harder.

    I can understand that “proof” from an independant government body about the existance of a minority group that many would like to opress and ignore can be quite threatening, maybe that’s why the Senator wants us to shove our fingers in our ears and go “LAA LAA LAA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”, much like children do when asked to clean their room… “Go in there young Liberal Senator, and don’t come out until you stop discriminating!”

    Tell you what. when we stop recording what religion people are, we can stop recording whether same sex partners consider themselves to be in a relationship. Deal?