The Tasmanian Relationships Act - a new type of relationships law
Tasmania's relationship laws are unlike any in the world.
They recognise and protect a wide range of different personal relationships.
These include intimate relationships like those between same-sex and mixed-sex couples. Here we're talking about gay and lesbian couples, and unmarried heterosexual couples.
They also include non-sexual "caring" relationships, such as those between carers and the people they care for, older companions or people in ethnic and Aboriginal families whose kinship ties have not been recognised by the law in the past.
Indeed, the definition of a relationship is wide enough to include virtually all adults who share their lives.
Importantly, all these couples are given virtually all the same rights and protections traditionally restricted to married heterosexual couples.
What's more Tasmanian relationship laws eliminate the traditional hierarchy that puts marriage and then de facto heterosexual unions above same-sex and other relationships by eliminating these old-fashioned divisions altogether and treating all relationships equally as significant and caring relationships.
The philosophy behind this wide-ranging and egalitarian model of recognition is that society benefits from affirming the love and commitment in all personal relationships.
The other feature of Tasmania's relationship laws is that they allow all couples to register their relationships with the Tasmanian Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Significant and caring couples are permitted to lodge a Deed of Relationship for registration in exactly the same way that marriages are registered.
Registration is important for certifying that a relationship exists, for allowing couples to access rights and protections immediately, and for officially affirming the value of a couple's love and commitment.
Read on to discover more about what Tasmania's relationship laws mean for you, and how you can best ensure your relationship is recognised and protected by the law.
