Shorten shuns ALP plan to remove gender from birth certificates
FEDERAL Labor Leader Bill Shorten has spoken out against a proposal to remove a person’s sex from their birth certificate — but his party’s National Conference will still debate the plan in December.
NSW
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THE Labor Party is refusing to abandon a push for a radical gender policy that would remove a person’s sex from their birth certificate.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the proposal will still be debated at the party’s National Conference despite widespread outrage from which even Labor Party leader Bill Shorten has tried to distance himself.
When asked yesterday whether he supported the ALP’s policy document’s proposal to remove gender from birth certificates, Mr Shorten said “no, I don’t … we’ve got no plans to change that”.
However, draft policy documents which detail the proposal will still be discussed at the National Conference in December, run by Federal Labor Business Forum director Kate Dykes.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison weighed into the fray yesterday, accusing Labor of being “obsessed” with gender.
“This is the problem with Labor, obsessed with nonsense like removing gender from birth certificates rather than lower electricity prices, reducing tax for hardworking families and small businesses,” Mr Morrison said.
ALP policy is formed at the national conferences by delegates voting on individual issues rather than by direction from party leaders.
“Policy within the Australian Labor Party is not made by directives from the leadership, but by resolutions originating from branches, affiliated unions and individual party members,” the constitution says.
The draft policy document, titled “A Fair Go For Australia”, detailed a comprehensive plan to reform the need to include gender in formal documentation.
“Labor will review documentation requirements, including passports and birth certificates, as they affect transgender and intersex people, to facilitate their equal enjoyment of human rights without discrimination and to promote identification options beyond binary male/female,” the document states.
The draft policy document was formed by hundreds of delegates, including members of the National Executive.
The document also argued that Australia should adopt the Yogyakarta Principles, a human rights legal application that “ends the registration of the sex and gender of the person” on official identity documents.
IT INCLUDES:
■ 64 mentions of “sexual orientation”
■ 59 mentions of “intersex”
■ 2 of “LGBTI”
■ 36 of “transgender”
■ 33 of “bisexual”
■ 31 of “lesbian”
■ 29 of “gay”
■ Several mentions of transphobia, biphobia and homophobia.
■ “Gender” gets 138 mentions including 19 mentions of “gender identity” and five of “gender pay gap”.
■ Diversity gets 27 mentions, including Labor’s promise to adopt a “50 per cent gender diversity target for government boards to be achieved within the first term of a Labor government.”
■ There are 42 mentions of “identity”, appropriately enough.
IN COMPARISON:
■ “Dignity of work” appears just once.
■ “Housing affordability” appears 10 times.
■ “Poverty” appears 25 times
■ “Homelessness” gets 43 mentions.
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE