Re #3: I agree that it would have been good to get marriage equality rather than civil unions. Having said that, to the best of my knowledge, every single reference in legislation to "marriage/spouse" now also includes a reference to "civil union/civil union partner" and "de facto relationship/de facto partner" - with the one exception of the Adoption Act 1955. So: I totally agree that the word is important! But at the same time, de facto relationships and civil unions are, legally, very very recognised in NZ law and I feel like that gets missed in the debate sometimes (because lots of jurisdictions don't recognise de facto relationships in statute law at all, and offer civil unions that have substantially fewer rights than marriage).

Re adoption specifically, I also agree that it's in desperate need of an overhaul; but at the same time I can see why they didn't deal with it when they dealt with de facto relationships first and then civil unions a few years later - because like you said, they used up a huge amount of political capital to get as far as they got.

blah politics. I think that a lot of the social legislation Labour managed between 1999 and 2008 has been so well accepted by mainstream New Zealand (the gays getting unionised DIDN'T make the sky fall in!) that people forget that this shit was ALL hugely controversial at the time. Which says good things about mainstream NZ's capacity for change, I guess?