Gabrielle speaks in Parliament to acknowledge IDAHOBIT Day 2023.
Transcript: I was brought to the principal’s office for canoodling with my girlfriend in school. So I know firsthand how vitally important it is to ensure that our young queer folk are supported and feel loved and seen and heard and, importantly, safe and protected. Safe Schools should be rolled out and funded in every single school that receives government funding. The protections from this government just do not go far enough to make sure that everyone in our community is safe and protected.
This government is very good, and has been particularly good today, at strong statements. I see you all ordered your pins in time for IDAHOBIT – well done – and the cupcakes were delicious. But our queer community is scared. Our queer community is suffering from disproportionate rates of depression, of self-harm, of suicide. That is why the Greens yesterday attempted to introduce our bill to expand anti-vilification laws, so that all the hate speech and the vilification and the discrimination that has been spoken about today in this chamber can be made unlawful.
We will continue to push to strengthen the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 so that no school in Victoria and no service in Victoria can discriminate against people on the basis of their sexuality, their gender or their gender expression. We will push to strengthen the powers and to increase the funding of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, not slash funding and slash jobs like this government is planning to do in this upcoming budget.
This year alone we have seen the far right mobilising and the threats to our queer community escalating.
We have seen neo-Nazis converging on the steps of Parliament with anti-trans groups spouting anti-trans rhetoric. We have seen members of this Parliament using their platform to spread vitriol. Ten inclusive, family-friendly events that have been organised in libraries across Victoria have been cancelled because of threats from the far right. The need to act is now. It is not just about strong statements. These actions send a strong message to our queer community, and every day this government delays it reinforces this message: you are not safe. You are not safe in the library, you are not safe in Parliament, you are not safe in the street, you are not safe in your school.
This Premier turned his back yesterday. Literally and figuratively he turned his back on a queer MP standing up to represent the queer community, begging for protections against vilification and hate speech, begging for protections for our queer community. Instead of congratulatory motions and patting ourselves on the back, my colleagues and I in the Greens will continue fighting until everyone in our queer community is safe and protected and truly free to be who they are.
