Queensland Rolls Back Rights

A setback in Australia.

The Australian state of Queensland will remove gay couples’ ability to have children through surrogacy and downgrade civil partnerships to the class of ‘registered relationships’, after a debate in Parliament last night. The Legislative Assembly in Brisbane agreed to extensively alter the provisions of the Civil Partnerships Act 2011, which came into force in February this year after control of the house swung to the right. The system, introduced in the final months of the last state government, will be renamed and the option of an official ceremony revoked so it bears less resemblance to marriage. The conservative Liberal National Party took control of the Parliament from the Labor Party in March in the worst election result for a sitting government in Queensland history.