Reporting back

The Justice and Electoral Matters Select Committee has reported back on the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. The core of the bill - defining civil unions as legally equivalent to marriage - has been unaffected, however numerous amendments have been made to the provisions dealing with de facto couples. This was inevitable given the complexity of the issues involved (and the true task of the Select Committee - to hash out all the fiddly bits), and it doesn't seem to have overly compromised the bill's intent.

Several issues which were already being reviewed, such as spousal immunity and automatic inheritance on the death of a partner, have been put off for future legislation, while other changes have been made to the rules governing minors and de facto relationships to bring things into line with a general age of majority of 18. But the most significant change has been the move away from a single (albeit loose) definition of "de facto" to be applied consistently across all laws to much simpler definition (a relationship in the nature of marriage or civil union between partners who are not married or cupped) to be applied according to the context and purpose of each piece of legislation. While the right will no doubt decry this as creating uncertainty and transferring power to judges, IMHO they have sufficient guidance and this is probably better than trying to force everyone into exactly the same box from day one.

All in all, the bill does introduce far more consistency into the law surrounding relationships, and there's nothing here that I strenuously object to. I look forward to it passing without too much trouble.