LGBTIQ+ activist Sally Rugg has returned to Perth to celebrate the launch of her new book How Powerful We Are.
The prominent marriage equality campaigner and executive director of Change.org spoke to Leigh Andrew Hill on RTRFM’s All Things Queer earlier today.
How did growing up in Perth shape your activism?
It’s where I grew up, it’s made me who I am. I think one of the most formative memories for me in terms of my activism journey was at my first primary school in White Gum Valley – White Gum Valley Primary.
I was in year one and the state government at that time wanted to build a massive road that would cut through where my primary school was. It was called ‘the by-pass’, I don’t know what it was bypassing – other than my school. The school community mobilised to try and stop this road from being built.
I was five, so I don’t think I had that much of an impact with the campaign, but we ended up winning, so the school was spared. That is something that I think from a really early age that I understood, as much as a five year old can, the power of collective action and how ordinary people can take on traditional power and win.
Perth is just lovely, I went to high school here, I went to university here, it’s really lovely to have this anchor.
It’s a few decades since the bypass but now you’ve written down all your experiences in the book How Powerful We Are, what made you want to write that all down?
How Powerful We Are, it’s a book about marriage equality, but it’s also a book about activism. It’s about how decision are made in this country, and about how power works in this country.
I wrote it down because when we got to the end of the marriage equality campaign, and the law just about to pass parliament, I felt like all around me the story about how we for there was being rewritten.
The story that was being told was that the Liberal government delivered this reform via a postal survey, which is just not how it happened.
I think it’s important to capture how it happened, firstly because it’s about accountability, but also because if we want to recreate the kind of mass social movements that achieved marriage equality – we need to know exactly how we got there.
We need to know what decisions were made, what mistakes were made, and the scale of work that occurred, so that we can replicate that again and again. The story of How Powerful We Are, it’s meant to be an informative, interesting and inspiring story, but I’m also hoping it’s a bit of a handbook for people interested in activism.
To learn about planning a strategy, how to use words and messages, and how to interact with the media and so forth.
Sally Rugg’s How Powerful We Are is available now. You can also catch sally tonight in conversation with Emma Gibbens at Connections Nightclub from 6pm. Head to RTRFM to hear the latest edition of All Things Queer.
OIP Staff
