EDITORIAL
As Pride WA gathered to announce the plans for their 2024 festival last month, Labor MLA Dave Kelly addressed a crowd of dignitaries.
Representing the Premier Roger Cook, Kelly delivered a speech sharing his enthusiasm for the annual LGBTIQA+ community festival, while also taking the opportunity to list the achievements the Cook and McGowan Labor governments had made during their two terms in office.
Kelly highlighted that “a whole of government” strategy was being developed when it came to equality for LGBTIQA+ people and noted that the government had increased funding to many LGBTIQA+ organisations. He highlighted that he was particularly proud of the funding provided to the Youth Pride Network (YPN) when he was Youth Minister under Mark McGowan.
The politician acknowledged that there was still a lot more to do.
“There are still areas where we are lacking, and one of the reports that the YPN has done is on the experience of young queer students in our schools. Now, our schools should be a safe place for every student, but particularly for queer students.” Kelly said.
He acknowledged that some state-run schools were great in the way they supported LGBTIQA+ students, and teachers in these schools were doing an amazing job, but other schools were described as being “vacant in this space”.
Kelly admitted when it came to LGBTIQA+ law reform there was still so much more the government needed to address, noting that equal opportunity law reform and surrogacy remained untouched. Then he made a claim that raised some eyebrows.
“The transgender board, we got that rid of that.” Kelly claimed, adding to the government’s list of achievements in LGBTIQA+ law reform.
The only problem is they haven’t gotten rid of it yet. The Gender Reassignment Board is still operating, and the legislation to remove it is yet to be debated in the Legislative Council.
The bill passed the Legislative Assembly, where the member for Bassendean resides, earlier this year. It was introduced into the Legislative Council in May. In the lead up to parliament’s long winter break the item did appear on the agenda, but they never got to it before they broke in late June.
When the upper house returns on Tuesday it’s still on their agenda, fourth on a list of twelve pieces of legislation in the queue. Labor has already announced there will be some amendments to the bill in its current form, and Greens MLC Brad Pettit has announced he’ll be putting forward a series of amendments to improve the legislation too. The Liberal party has indicated they will oppose the bill.
There are 27 sitting days of the Legislative Council remaining for 2024, and an election in March 2025.
OUTinPerth asked Dave Kelly if he “was counting some chickens before they’d hatched?” And if the Cook government was confident that the bill would pass. He referred us to Attorney General John Quigley, but noted that he’d attended the Pride launch while on annual leave. John Quigley’s office has not responded.
Even if the government does eventually manage to pass the bill before the election, it leaves Labor with a short list of achievements to highlight to the LGBTIQA+ communities for eight years in government.
Often MPs would cite the Expungement of Historical Homosexual Convictions Bill when standing in front of a rainbow crowd, but that seems to have abandoned as a claim to fame after OUTinPerth revealed that only one person had ever had their conviction removed since the scheme was launched.
Banning conversion therapy practices appears to have stalled, despite a parliamentary inquiry showing the abhorrent practice has been occurring in the state in recent times. Earlier this year the Attorney General cracked some jokes about it during a radio interview.
Surrogacy law reform attempts came crashing down in 2019. In 2022 Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the issue was still on the agenda, but it has now been pushed off until some future date, post the 2025 election.
And what about those LGBTIQA+ school kids that Dave Kelly noted may be going to a government school devoid of any support? The government stopped funding the Inclusive Education program that was designed to tackle homophobic bullying and empower LGBTIQA+ youth back in 2020.
The Legislative Council gets back to work on Tuesday, the wait for the removal of the Gender Reassignment Board continues.
