TAS:Relationship reforms set national and international standard

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TAS:Relationship reforms set national and international standard

Same-sex couples will be able to legally register their relationship and have greateraccess to adoption under new laws passed in Tasmania.

Tasmania will be the first Australian state to institute a same-sex couple registerafter the government's Relationships Bill passed through the upper house yesterday.

Tasmania's Attorney-General JUDY JACKSON hailed the new laws as world-class.

She says they will enable same-sex and significant relationships to be registered withBirths, Deaths and Marriages in months.

It also opens the way for same-sex couples to access known-child adoption where oneof the partners is a parent of the child.

Western Australia is the only other state to allow such adoption rights.

Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group spokesman RODNEY CROOME says the state has seta national and international standard.

Tasmania was the last state in Australia to decriminalise homosexuality in 1997.

AAP RTV las/swe/rp/swe/psm/

KEYWORD: REGISTER (HOBART)