Good work, New Zealand!

So, years ago, New Zealand introduced Civil Unions for everyone. And yesterday, they decided that GLBTI marriage should be legal and removed all the restrains on gender from its marriage laws.

It's easy to forget how progressive New Zealand is. They beat us all for giving women the vote, they had a treaty with their indigenous peoples and have mostly abided by it, and they are pretty damned good on carbon reduction, too.

As is so often in the Southern Hemisphere, it was the party you didn't expect who brought the reforms in. Howard the Great Conservative launched gun control in Australia, Hawke and Keating, the classic Labor unionists, brought about economic reforms that had all of the pros of Thatcherism, but without the cons. You will note that Australia's economy remains thriving!

Here it was the Conservatives who held the balance of power. The bill was introduced by Louisa Wall, a gay Labour party MP, and made it through 77-44 with serious support from the government.

Here in Australia, we can't even get a similar bill through with it being Australian Labor Party policy (they are the party allegedly in government here, but … look, I need to get over this broken thumb and new job exhaustion so that I can properly write up the lunacy …)

The lovely sly_girl linked to this masterpiece of a speech by Maurice Williamson. Everybody should be linking to it. He is my new favourite politician. The woman the camera cuts away to who is clearly filled with joy is Louisa Wall.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY catsintheattic! I hope that everything for you is as good as Maurice Williamson! And may your cats shower you with purrs!