Australia's capital is fast-tracking a provincial law to give gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples, an official said yesterday, but the federal government plans to veto the measure.
Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Attorney-General Simon Corbell yesterday introduced amendments to ground-breaking laws passed by his center-left government a month ago which give gay and lesbian couples who hold a civil union ceremony the same legal rights as married couples.
The law originally was to go into effect on Aug. 1, but the amendments expected to be passed late yesterday with bipartisan support by the ACT's Legislative Assembly would make the move effective within three weeks, Corbell said.
Canberra is the only city in the tiny territory but same-sex couples from around Australia have expressed interest in coming to the national capital to be joined in the closest thing to gay marriage that is available in the country.
But the new status of same-sex relationships is likely to be short lived with the center-right federal government announcing this week it would veto the laws from August.
"If the legislation is made void, they will no longer be in a civil union. They will be back to square one and we're advising people of that risk," Corbell told reporters.
"But we do know there are some people within the community who still want to go through with a civil union, simply to exercise a right that our Assembly here in the ACT has granted them," he added.
Prime Minister John Howard's government amended federal marriage laws in 2004 to ensure that only men and women can marry and to head off possible legal challenges from gays and lesbians.
The ACT law states that a civil union is not a marriage, but entitles gay and lesbian couples to the same legal rights within the ACT as a married couple.
Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock was taking advise on how his government should respond to the ACT government's attempt to fast-track same-sex unions, his spokeswoman Charlie McKillop said.
"It just shows their [ACT government's] willingness to play politics with people's lives with these types of stunts while doing nothing to really further the causes of the people that they say they are advancing," McKillop said.
"The government's view is that those people [in recognized civil unions] will still be effectively in a legal limbo and be exposed to the emotional anguish of that once the legislation has been overturned," she added.
Howard said the government wanted to preserve "the special status of marriage" as it was originally intended.
"The fundamental difficulty I have with the ACT legislation is the clause which says that a civil union is different from marriage but has the same entitlements," he told reporters. "It's a little bit hypocritical."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese