Partnership register confusion

As Randwick and Waverley Councils plan to start partnership registers for same-sex couples, allegations have been raised that the much-publicised former South Sydney Council’s register has fallen into a hole.

Last week Randwick Council voted to start a partnership register and to investigate the model used by City of Sydney, which was inherited from South Sydney Council after the councils merged in February.

Randwick mayor Murray Matson, who had been pushing for the register since last year, said he was waiting to see information from City of Sydney before taking the project any further.

We would model our register on theirs, Matson said. From what I understand, City of Sydney has had between six and a dozen couples register over the last year, so I don’t imagine there will be a lot of logistics in setting one up at Randwick.

Waverley Council also recently voted in favour of starting a register after deputy mayor George Newhouse raised the possibility.

We’d seen what South Sydney Council were doing and being a progressive council we realised it was important to acknowledge relationships of all sorts, Newhouse said.

Newhouse investigated South Sydney’s register, finding it was not exactly working well -¦ so while we want to do it we need to wait until they have it worked out and it runs smoothly before we do it.

A source from Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s office told the Star the partnership register was still operational and had the mayor’s full support. A review of the program was currently in progress in a bid to improve it. They said around 10 couples had registered so far.

Former mayor of South Sydney and current City of Sydney councillor Tony Pooley told the Star, My general suspicion is that [the register] disappeared after the amalgamation.

I asked Clover about it at the last council meeting, because I’d had a complaint from someone that when they came into Town Hall to inquire about it, the person behind the counter didn’t know anything about it, Pooley said.

Clover agreed that not only was it carried on but she would make sure that all four neighbourhood centres -“ Town Hall, Redfern, Glebe and Kings Cross -“ know about it and that there would also be a link on the City of Sydney homepage.

However, a source told the Star the register has fallen into a bit of hole and had still not been allocated to a specific department.