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WHAT YOU CAN DO
There have been enough inquiries, it's time for reform. We need to bolster support within the Labor Party and try and win over as many Government Parliamentarians as possible.
Ring or write to your Federal MP. Explain the problem and how it affects you. Ask him or her to support change.
To find out contact details for your local MP, visit the
Parliament
of Australia website.
Superannuation
Although we achieved recognition of same sex relationships in most areas
of state law in 1999, the Federal Government continues to discriminate
in many areas. One of the most important is superannuation.
Lesbians and gay men make the same contributions to super as their heterosexual
colleagues but do not receive the same benefits. Among other things this
means that when a lesbian or gay man dies, their partner is often denied
access to death benefits. More information on the impact of discriminatory
super laws is available from our fact sheet.
The fight so far
The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has been fighting to get equal rights
for gay men and lesbians in super for many years. We produced a discussion
paper in 1996, 
Superannuation
and Same Sex Relationships, which examined the issues in some detail.
In 1998, we worked with Federal Member for Grayndler, Anthony Albanese,
to develop a private members bill to fix the problem. If passed,
the Superannuation (Entitlements of Same Sex Couples) Bill 2000 would
remove discrimination from federal legislation dealing with private super
schemes. (Government super schemes would have to be amended separately
due to limitations on what private members bills can do.)
1999 saw the Human Rights Commissioner, Chris Sidoti examine the issue
of discrimination in government superannuation schemes and support equal
rights for same sex couples. The
Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Report found that current superannuation
legislation contravenes at least 2 international treaties the International
Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the International Labor Organisation
Convention on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation). It also examines
the issues in more detail.
The Senate Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial Services
examined Albanese's Bill and released its report
in April 2000. The majority of the committee, made up of the Labor and
Democrat Senators, supported the Bill. But despite the completely unprecedented
number of submissions in favour of the Bill (over 1200) and the underwhelming
opposition to it (only 5 submissions opposed it), the Government Senators
on the Committee wrote a minority report opposing the Bill.
Since that time GLRL has managed to get firm commitments to reform from
the Democrats, Greens and ALP but the Howard Government has not budged
in opposing this moderate reform.
