Federal ban on aiding same - sex rights inquiry

You won't find his on the net unless you have a subscription to the AFR, so it hasn't had wide publicity.

AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW – Thursday 22^nd June 2006

Federal ban on aiding same - sex rights inquiry

Laura Tingle
Chief political correspondent

Howard government ministers have instructed federal departments and agencies not to make submissions to a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission inquiry into discrimination against same-sex couples in accessing financial and work-related entitlements.
The inquiry, set up early this year, is seeking to audit commonwealth, state and territory laws to develop a full list of circumstances in which same-sex couples and their children may be denied financial and/or work-related benefits and entitlements worth tens of thousands of dollars that are available to heterosexual couples.

But a spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock told The Australian Financial Review that ministers had discussed the inquiry and collectively agreed to instruct their departments not to make submissions to it, arguing that since it was HREOC’s inquiry it should be left to HREOC to do the work, rather than their departments

The instruction to the public service appears to fly in the face of the stated position of Prime Minister John Howard who, despite the federal government’s move last week to overturn ACT same-sex union laws, has in the past insisted his government was keen to address any financial discrimination same- sex couples might face.

Submissions to the inquiry already published document discrimination on issues such as public service superannuation, housing loans, war veterans pensions, workers’ compensation and Medicare benefits, which can cost couples thousands of dollars.

The superannuation industry has made a submission to the inquiry highlighting the problems of same- sex couples in super, such as being unable to split their contributions, leaving them exposed to tax payments of 15 per cent on amounts of more than $129,751 which heterosexual couples have not had to pay.

When Mr Howard announced amendments to the Marriage Act in May 2004, he also announced the government would be legislating in the area of superannuation to intro- duce the concept of financial interdependency.

This meant same-sex couples could access the same concessional tax treatment for superannuation death benefits available to heterosexuals instead of facing a 30 per cent tax bill.
But a pressing concern among the federal government’s own public servants is that the legislation did not apply the law to its own public sector funds.

This month, Mr Howard was asked if he had a problem with same-sex couples having the same entitlements as married couples.

‘ ‘I am in favour of removing areas of discrimination and we have, and I’m quite happy on a case- by-case basis to look at other areas where people believe there’s genuine discrimination but I think they should be looked at on a case-by- case basis,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s the sort of thing that can be done in an across the board fashion.

‘ ‘We made some changes in relation to entitlements a couple of years ago and if there are other areas of genuine discrimination, then I’m in favour of getting rid of them.

“But that doesn’t mean that you equate those relationships with marriage. I think that is a step that the Australian community doesn’t want to occur, whilst at the same time there are many genuine areas of discrimination.”

Last night on The Rainbow Report on Joy 94.9, Liberal MP Warren Entsch told me he agreed with the Attorney-General’s position, but Shadow Attorney General Nicola Roxon said it was unprecedented for government departments not to make submission to enquiries when requested to do so.

I also understand that HREOC may still ask departments for information, but they may have to pay for it. And of course, it all depends on knowing exactly the right questions to ask in the first place!!

Doug Pollard