South Australia embraces gay parents
South Australia’s Legislative Council has voted 14-5 to pass a bill allowing both a birth mother and non-birth mother to appear on the birth certificate of their child, providing both legal recognition and responsibilities for both parents.
The Family Relationships (Parentage) Amendment Bill 2010 was introduced by Greens MLC Tammy Franks on behalf of the state’s openly gay Labor MLC Ian Hunter (pictured).
South Australian gay and lesbian rights lobby Lets Get Equal welcomed the vote and thanked Hunter and Franks for their work on the bill.
“They have been wonderfully supportive in this process and they’ve shown great leadership with it,” Lets Get Equal spokeswoman Terri Mitchell-Smith said.
“We are absolutely thrilled that this has passed the Upper House and look forward to it passing the lower house – hopefully very soon.”
Hunter said the overwhelming vote in the Legislative Council should be a sign to the state government that change was overdue.
“I congratulate Lets Get Equal, a fantastic gay community lobby group, for their campaign to get this legislation passed and I congratulate Greens MLC Hon Tammy Franks for introducing this Bill,” Hunter said.
Franks said MLCs had voted in favour of common sense and decency.
“The amendment will finally put an end to years of discrimination for same sex parents,” Franks said.
“Despite South Australia being the first state to legalise homosexuality, we are the last Australian state or territory to recognise same sex parenting.
“It is a shameful indictment on our state that same-sex attracted parents are treated this way. The archaic laws mean only one parent is recognised under law, creating difficulties for the other parent.
“The non-recognised parent can’t easily consent to medical treatment, sign school forms or travel alone with their child. Being a parent is hard enough without additional red tape.”
Franks said in the absence of this reform some South Australian families had resorted to travelling interstate to give birth so both parents could be recognised.
“Happily, if the Bill passes through the House of Assembly, this will no longer be the case,” she said.
Franks and Hunter have also collaborated on a bill to legalise same-sex marriage under state law in South Australia which will be debated this week.
Great news, particularly the large majority. We had asked in our submission that they allow for more than two parents on the birth certificate as our child has 3 parents (two mothers and a father). Small steps!!
The “parentage bill” is fantastic piece of proposed legislation since I just read it on another tab while on the Internet and it is sure to pass the lower house – since Labor has a clear majority in the lower house chamber.
South Australia is the ONLY state not to recognise co-mothers who have female partners (same on you South Australia since you were the ones as the first state in Australia who back in 1975 allowed gay sex between males for the first time) – even despite the federal Commonwealth legislation does recognise co-mothers with female partners anyway!!!!!
Clearly section 109 of the Australian Constitution quotes and says that Commonwealth laws that are inconsistent override state laws!!!!
Also point of reference section 51 of the Australian Constitution clearly quotes and says that the Commonwealth (federal level) has the responsibility on marriage laws – NOT the states, get it right people!!!!!
Now there are other areas in South Australian legislation that ban both single people and same sex couples from IVF, adoption and surrogacy access also need to be repealed – please stop focusing on same sex marriage so much.
I support same sex marriage remember, don’t get me wrong – but we need to fix the other parts of discrimination first, starting with:
1. Repealing the blood donation ban for gay and bisexual men.
2. Repealing all discriminatory adoption laws in VIC, QLD, SA and the NT. Remember WA, TAS, NSW and ACT now allow same sex couples EQUAL rights to access the adoption of children.
3. Implementing federal anti-discrimination laws on “relationship status”, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” – in line with all the states and territories (federal Labor promised this in 2007 and we are still waiting for proposed legislation to come up).
4. Then after ALL the (3) top things are done, then we can finally implement and allow for laws on same sex marriage at a FEDERAL level, not a state level (this is not the US remember).
Remember since 2009 in all levels of federal, state and territory laws now recognise same sex couples as “de-facto couples” under the Commonwealth’s Acts Interpretation Act 1901!!!!
Back in 2009 this same law started in NSW…and has been followed in NSW by the critically important Same-Sex Adoption laws.