2013: Redefinition of Marriage Act
August 19, 2025
By AHNZ
Today in New Zealand history, 19 August, 2013, Louisa Wall’s Private Member’s Bill came into effect as a law during the Ministry of National 5.0.
Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013 got The State into the institution of marriage and re-defined it as not needing husband and wife.
It would be better if Government wouldn’t get involved in such matters at all rather than try to compel speech or tell us how to love or form contracts with each other. Instead, it becomes a political football to use civil law to allow or criminalise social arrangements that ought to have been left up to people to decide for themselves.
The State already decides what an “official” language is (Maori and NZ Sign Language) so, inevitableally, it’s a slippery slope toward insisting that New Zealand English, too, is given this official status too. And the end result? Language is controlled by The State. It is the same with marriage.
The Government should never have stuck its nose in. By making marriage a matter of civil law rather than common law, or religion, or custom, the institution becomes a political football to be fought over for control. It is also the same way with place names or any other of the parts of our lives that government increasingly encroaches upon to judge and referee and control.
“At the third reading, Wall gave a speech likening the passing of the Bill to Treaty of Waitangi settlement acts..” – Wiki
“This bill has seen a full gallery at the first and second readings, and again tonight. My only other experience of that has been Treaty settlement legislation recording the agreement reached between Māori and the Crown. In both instances the parties affected are minority groups that have been marginalised. They have been dealt with unjustly under the law. Steps are being taken to right the wrongs they have suffered, and it shows me that this process matters. Having Parliament recognise and address injustice and unfairness matters to those affected by it. It is the start of the healing process.” – Wall, Hansard (April 2013,) parliament.nz
“This third reading is our road towards healing and including all citizens in our state institution of marriage regardless of their sex, sexual orientation or gender identity,” – Wall, Three News (2013,) Wayback Machine
“There has hardly been a debate. There has been a small but vocal minority and anyone who disagrees is (condemned as) a bigot,” – Winston Peters, One News (2013,) Wayback Machine
“Wall’s appointment was controversial, coming only weeks after quitting Parliament after a 14-year career as a Labour MP. She was celebrated for sponsoring the marriage equality bill, which passed in 2013, but later fell out with the party when she believed she was forced out of her Manurewa seat.” – Louisa Wall’s ambassador role scrapped, The Post (2024)
Wall resigned from parliament to become ‘Ambassador for Gender Equality’ to try to take gay marriage to our Pacific dependencies who had rejected it. This did not take with our island neighbours as, the Leftist’s Woke Savage assumptions turn out to be as the old Rousseauian Noble Savage one. Wall came home.
This Mark Winter cartoon (above) shows a lawyer dreaming of his anticipated increase in revenue. An expanded definition of marriage means an expanded workload for divorce law.
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Image ref. Mark Winter, Southland Times (2013,) Alexander Turnbull Library
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