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News, Reviews & Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual women in Entertainment and the Media

Australian Legislators Back Gay Rights


.★.Matt The Rock$tar.★.'s picture

aww cool

we got another one on board for equality

Babs's picture

the aussies, the canadians

...and most of western europe are way ahead of us.

 of course...

Smile ;)'s picture

I read the act today...

I read the act today... (Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws—Superannuation) Bill 2008)

This ammends other commonwealth acts. Basicall anywhere that it is written "marrital relationship" to "couple relationship" and "husband/wife" is replaced with "Partner"

where partner is defined as:

partner: a person is the partner of another person if the two persons have a relationship as a couple (whether the persons are the same sex or different sexes).

The other good thing is i think they will back date it to the begining of this financial year.

Here is the Bills digest a dcoument that explaines all sides of the political arguement.

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/BD/2008-09/09bd020.pdf

here is the explainatory memorandum

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/Bills1.nsf/0/EB6210E16A9F57CECA25745900260637/$file/08107em.pdf

if interested.

it isn't marrige and adoption isn't allowed yet, although the wording looks a like there is a little wiggle room. If a child is the "product of the couple relationship" is strange wording. But so far at least one parent must be the biological parent.