2016-02-04
Overseas marriage recognition laws must be standardised across the country to avoid the heartache and humiliation experienced by a British man refused next of kin status, after his husband died in Adelaide while the couple was on holiday, the Australian Greens say.
"On Thursday I will introduce the Greens bill to Parliament to bring South Australia, Western Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory into line with the rest of the country in recognising same sex marriages performed overseas. No-one should ever have to go through the trauma experienced by Marco Bulmer-Rizzi after his husband David's death last month," Greens LGBTI spokesperson Senator Robert Simms said.
"We currently have a situation where overseas same-sex marriages are recognised in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania, but not in other states. We have to remedy this complex web of relationship laws so married couples receive the acknowledgement they deserve.
"It is embarrassing that our state, the first state in the nation to decriminalize homosexuality 40 years ago, is now lagging behind as one of the last states to remove this discrimination."