Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 - Second Reading Debate

Mr GREG PIPER (Lake Macquarie) (16:45): I speak in support of the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023, to which amendments will be moved by the member for Sydney. It is always good to follow someone such as the member for Gosford, who articulates the issues so well, as have some of the other more progressive speakers today, and I think they have moved many people. The bill was brought before the House in recognition that LGBTIQA+ people, like all of us, deserve to be afforded the same dignity as every other member of our community. They deserve to thrive as the person they are, not as a person others wished they were. This requires that the legal framework governing their daily lives and decisions protects and supports them. Yet, the current framework does not protect and support them as it should. The bill presents us with an opportunity to strengthen our laws for the benefit of LGBTIQA+ people and to address the discrimination and intolerance embedded in our State laws.

I add my voice to support for amendments to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act. In particular, I support those amendments that would mean that trans and gender diverse people no longer need to undergo invasive and expensive surgery in order to update their birth certificates to reflect their gender identity. New South Wales is the only jurisdiction in which surgery is a precondition for a trans or gender diverse person to update their birth certificate. Some people cannot afford the surgery, while others might not wish to undergo it for personal reasons, including because it involves sterilisation. That surgery is only required today in New South Wales, but not in other Australian jurisdictions. That demonstrates the need for a change to this Act.

Proposed amendments to the bill will make clear that the alteration of records to reflect a person's gender identity would not change access to toilets, change rooms, sport, allocation in correctional facilities, women's refuges or any other place. This added clarity—which I did not think should be necessary—may help alleviate some concerns around the amendment of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act. I also support changing the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act in relation to outing a person's sexual orientation, gender history, variation of sex characteristics, HIV diagnosis or sex work. Provisions in the bill regarding outing a person apply to domestic settings. However, the proposed amendments of the member for Sydney would bring outing a person within the offence of intimidation under the Act, meaning that people would also have legal protection from being outed in other settings, such as the workplace. Everyone deserves to earn a living free from harassment. This should include those who, for personal reasons, do not wish to disclose their sexual orientation or history.

The bill also makes a number of other commonsense changes, for example, by modernising some legislation to update language describing people living with HIV or AIDS so that it is more respectful than the stigmatising terms currently included; by providing extra time to register a birth if variations of sex characteristics make it difficult to determine the sex of the child, from 60 days to 180 days; and by removing the summary offence of living off the earnings of a sex worker, which ignores the reality that people can do both sex work and support loved ones who are over 18. The continued presence of this offence on the statute book is outdated and simply unjust. The bill is an important step in entrenching equality in New South Wales laws.

To that end, I note that the NSW Law Reform Commission is currently reviewing the Anti-Discrimination Act. I look forward to the commission's findings and hope that they will act as a platform for further reform. As society evolves, legislation too must evolve to reflect contemporary community standards. The bill is an effort to help the law keep pace with our society, which is now far more accepting of LGBTIQA+ people than when the outdated provisions the bill seeks to amend were drafted. It does not make sense to retain unfair or obsolete laws or overlook LGBTIQA+ people by failing to recognise, support and protect them in law. For the marginalised minority that the bill affects, it will be a stride forward and no doubt a great relief. For those not directly impacted, it will invariably become part of the social fabric shaping our society with no harm done to them.

Finally, I commend the member for Sydney and his team, particularly Tammie Nardone and all those who have worked with him, and supporters of the LGBTIQA+ community. The member for Sydney has done a fantastic job bringing the bill forward. As we know, it has been a struggle to make some of these big social changes. We did it for the decriminalisation of abortion and for voluntary assisted dying, and now we are going to do it for the LGBTIQA+ community.