The Queensland Government’s proposed new Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill 2022 which would allow the falsifying of legal documents is being widely criticised for its inevitable serious consequences including identification problems for courts and government departments.
The Australian Christian Lobby’s State Director for Queensland, Rob Norman, said, “The government has been disingenuous in their approach to this irresponsible and dangerous bill. Its release by the Attorney General, Shannon Fentiman, on the last Parliamentary sitting day of 2022 and subsequent referral to a committee with a deadline of 11th January for public submissions, meant that it was timed for the least possible scrutiny. As the only Australian State with no House of Review, it is imperative that Queensland’s committee process be approached with integrity.
“The government knew this bill would be contentious. Despite also being the Minister for Women, in introducing the Bill to Parliament, Ms Fentiman took aim at concerned feminist movements, stating, ‘some groups will try to cloak their transphobia in the guise of women’s safety’.
“However, the government’s attempt to silence legitimate and evidence-based concerns has failed, with their policy and direction on gender and sex-related legislation questioned by many groups including the Queensland Law Society which has called for an audit of all state legislation and policies referring to “sex” or “gender”, in order to clarify rules.”
Rob Norman continued, “If successful, this Bill will essentially legalise the falsification of Birth Certificates. Sex is not a social attribute that can be changed on a whim or a feeling. It is defined by biology and immutable. According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, our ‘sex’ is defined as being the “biological and physiological characteristics that define humans as female or male”.
The consequences of falsifying the facts surrounding the live birth of a person are far reaching and have serious consequences, providing opportunity, even for male sexual predators, to legally change their sex by simply filling in a form to gain access to female only spaces.”
The Australian Christian Lobby calls on the State Opposition to vigorously oppose this Bill and commit to restoring integrity to legal documents if elected in 2024.
ENDS
