Category: Opinions

I sent an email of to my local member and the shadow attorny general. To my surprise I got fast responses from both, on in email and the other in writing.

Okay I will start with the oppositions response via email. Nicola Roxon who is our shadow attorney general (ie she would be the head law maker if her party was in power) for the Labor Party.

… The Labor Party will not oppose the PM’s measures to confirm in the Marriage Act the common law understanding that marriage is “a union between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others”. Consistent with this, Labor will also not oppose a prohibition on recognising foreign same sex marriages.
more importantly, Labor restates its commitment to remove discriminatory provisions from Commonwealth legislation on the basis of sexuality, following a full audit of existing laws.
…
When complete, this will give same sex couples the rights and recognition of heterosexual de facto couples.

So if they get elected then same sex couples will have the same recognition as unmarried heterosexual couples. This is good, however why then the restriction on marriage. The only reason is the current “common law” interpretation of the current act.

Now my local member Gary Hardgrave belongs to the ruling Liberal Party which introduced the bill to reword the marriage act.

… The Government condemns discrimination in all its forms. However, the Government also believes that it is clearly in the best interests of children for them to have, all other things being equal, the care and affection of both a mother and a father.

…
These [new] words represent the current as well as the historical legal understanding of marriage in Australian Law.

…
marriages entered into under the law of another country are recognised as valid under Australian Law. The Government proposes to amend the Marriage Act to ensure that marriages between people of the same sex entered into under the law of another country are not recognised in Australia.

Ok so as it stands they say this is for the children, because they “believe” it is in the best interest of the child. I would like to see the advice or studies they have based that on.

Comments Welcome..

Well our government has done it, little Johnny Howard has to do what George W does.

The Australian government is making changes to the family act to set in law that marriage can only be a union between a man and a woman. The opposition here also agrees so they will pass the changes.

Well more closed minds doing more strange things.

I am getting out my pen and paper and writing to my local member today.

Today is ANZAC Day in Australia. We remember on this day our country men and women that have given their lives in conficts around the world.

Many people believe that ANZAC Day was a celebration of war and suffering, however they would be wrong. ANZAC Day is about remembering that conflicts and wars do happen and that people like you and me had conviction enough to fight and die for their country and ideals.

I would like to include here a quote from a poem my daughter performed at her school parade.

To The Fallen – Laurence Binyon

th songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odd uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them,

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the daytime;
They sleep beyond the foam.

But were our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their land, they are known
As the stars are known to the night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

I remember my grandfather at this time…

In the UK telegraph they have a story about a
pickled “dragon” found in a garage in Oxfordshire. This is widely believed to be an old hoax.

Ok I don’t know about you but this is so cool! Yes of course it is a hoax but what a cool hoax

You can read the original article, but I found a better link with pictures.

From the article people believe that this hoax was created by the Germans in the 19th century to “show up” their Brittish rivals. They say that the Germans may have sent it to the Brits hoping they would fool them.

As you may have noticed this site is created with the new XHTML and CSS standards. This is because I believe that all sites should follow the standards.

This does not mean I am against enhanced tags, plugins or applets. Just that I believe these should enhance the users experience, not be the only means of interaction. It also does not mean that I insist that you use the most modern browser to navigate my site.

By using XHTML and CSS, every browser in existance (past and present) can display the information on this site. However to gain the formatting as I planned it your browser will have to support CSS1 at least. I have added some special features for users of newer browsers that support CSS2 and some yet to be released CSS3.