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So I was elected to Wellington Central in 1981, uh, for Labour and I went into opposition because the National Party with Muldoon as the Prime Minister was still in government at that stage. I was a young solo mother with three primary school aged children. And that was a bit different at the time. I don't think anyone had tried that before. Um, but I, it made me a little bit aware of being slightly marginal in a big institution. [00:00:30] Uh, during the campaign, the gay community members had lobbied me as all candidates, where did we stand on gay law reform, and of course I said I supported it. And after the election, a group came back to me and said, look, we need a bill introduced by somebody who will actually.. promote it and run a campaign. You can't just introduce a bill into parliament and let it go because it will die. So I thought about it for a very small time and said, yes, I would do it. I have to say, I did [00:01:00] not understand then just how. huge and how terrible it would be, and what a big impact it would have on my life and the life of my family. But I've not regretted doing it, obviously, but it was much bigger than I thought. So the first bill that was drafted was called the Equality Bill, that didn't even get to first base, and after the 1984 election, I introduced what was then called the Homosexual Law Reform Bill. Two parts. Part one was decriminalisation. Part two was an amendment [00:01:30] to the Human Rights Act. Uh, it was a very bitter campaign. It was fought not just in Parliament, but on the streets, and right around in workplaces, etc, etc. The famous petition, uh, has now gone down in, um, infamous history in New Zealand. Supposedly the biggest petition ever. In fact, many of the, uh, that many of the signatures were either fraudulent, we went through every single one, [00:02:00] or we found that people had, people said I was forced to sign, or they wrote to me, many people wrote and said look I didn't want to sign but I was in a group of people in. pretty much I had to. There's a lot of peer pressure. The Fundamentalist Christians ran a big campaign. We believed there was money and campaign material and in fact, speakers coming from the US and we had to learn a lot from the US about how to fight. That rhetoric as well. Um, [00:02:30] essentially we were running a campaign for the hearts and minds of New Zealanders. We felt if we educated them about the reality of being gay and what it was not. Uh, then they would give their mps permission to vote for the bill When it was first introduced, we had, we thought, 19 mps who would vote for a third reading. So not a show, but sporting agreement. In those days, everybody voted for the [00:03:00] first, for the introduction, which was great. That allowed us to get it onto the table in the house and to start talking about it publicly. Um, The campaign was huge and it was very difficult. We ran a massive campaign right through the country in every city and the small towns as well. I did a lot of travel and talk back with some of the most vicious opponents sitting. sharing a microphone with Norm Jones while he, when he said if his son were gay, [00:03:30] he'd put him in a mental institution. I mean, it was, it was pretty ghastly. There was a lot of hate mail. There were death threats. The police were very good. Um, and, uh, generally there was some. civil disorder about this bill. Uh, but there were wonderful moments as well and I do remember when the petition was being heard in the select committee and I had to come up for air at one stage, it was very foul what was being said and I went up to my office and just as I arrived, a messenger arrived with a [00:04:00] huge bunch of spring bulbs, beautiful perfume, and I thought, ah, that's lovely. So it was just somebody I didn't know, I think, in the gay community who'd sent me these flowers, and of course, they were very supportive. The real heroes were, um, the men who came out during the campaign, because visibility was really important for us. Uh, we had to prove to New Zealand that Gay men were not a threat, they were just [00:04:30] the person they worked with, the person next door, their colleague, um, or their son, or in some cases, sadly, their husband. So, many men came out, and of course they took a huge risk because they were criminal. And had the bill not succeeded, that would have been the most terrible blight on their lives. forever. The other thing was we knew that if the fundamentalist Christians succeeded in voting, getting this bill voted down, they would in fact then move on [00:05:00] to other progressive social legislation as well. And clearly they had women's rights in there. in their sites as well. Um, AIDS had just arrived and we knew we had to have a way of, um, getting gay men to go to health clinics and, and clearly they weren't going to go if they were criminal. So there were a whole lot of reasons for getting it through. Uh, in the end, MPs voted down the part two, the human rights part, which was promoted later and Catherine O'Regan [00:05:30] did a, have to acknowledge her for what she did on that. And that was a kind of insurance policy. So MPs could say, well, I voted down the human rights, but I felt I had to vote for decriminalization. The other interesting thing was that the, the people opposed to it, um, decided in the committee stages of the bill in the house that, If it had an age of 16, it would be too radical for some MPs, because many had said to me, I'll vote for it if it were 18. We had [00:06:00] decided to stick to 16, and when they voted with us for 16, that was a really interesting moment because the antis thought we would lose the legislation, but I knew that the ones who had said I want 18 wouldn't risk. voting down the bill just because of the age of consent. So we actually got it through as we wanted it, that decriminalization part. So it was, it was great. It wasn't a huge majority. Um, there was a lot of tactical [00:06:30] voting and the whole time it progressed through the house was pretty torrid. Um, Terrible things said to and about all sorts of people. But we got it through and of course the sky didn't fall in. Western civilization didn't collapse. The world just went on. Um, and for me, it was, um, I did a number of other things that I'm very proud of when I was in Parliament. But this is probably the one bit of legislation that has had the most impact on the [00:07:00] most people. So, I'm still very proud that I was able to do it.
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