The WA government have announced that they’re going to be updating the equal opportunity legislation and adding vilification provisions.
It’s the first update to this legislation in over 40 years. Immediately after the announcement yesterday, OUTinPerth co-editor Graeme Watson caught up with Rainbow Futures CEO Dr Misty Farquhar.
This announcement has been a long time coming. Did you fear it wasn’t going to happen?
Absolutely. We were really worried, particularly in the last few weeks. We started hearing that maybe we weren’t going to get it, and that really worried us. But I’m really glad that they’ve delivered.
With only a few days of Parliament left for this year, there’s probably zero chance this is going to go through the lower house or even get through the upper house in 2026. That means we’re going to have a really long time for people to campaign against this legislation, is that a concern?
It is a concern. I think, though, the argument against that is that this legislation is actually better for everyone, not just for us. And I think most West Australians are going to celebrate this. You know that it’s a long-overdue updating of a very very old legislation that is going to be better for everyone.
You and I were both at an event recently with the Equal Opportunity Commission. They talked about how they have started looking at this just after the turn of the century. So that really highlights how long it has been, and also a long journey even just through our current government to get to this point.
Do you feel confident that this something is going to get passed in the next year or so, or is there a chance this could be set off to committees and further investigations, another Law Reform report?
I suppose we Rainbow Futures have done everything we possibly can in the background to try and make sure that that doesn’t happen.
Obviously, we don’t have control over that, but we’ve been having all of the conversations that we possibly can to make sure that that doesn’t happen.
And I say this quite often that I don’t think I could do this job if I didn’t have hope, and so it is my hope that the government really has good intentions around this legislation and really want to see it pass.
When we get to this legislation, it’s going to be tabled tomorrow. When you go through it line by line, looking at the details, what are you going to be honing in on what areas of concern do you have?
I suppose the religious discrimination is the bit that’s going to be you know the biggest area for us to look at. We’ll also be looking at things like, how does this land for trans and gender diverse people? How does it interact with things like sport and births, deaths, and marriages? And then maybe like the anti-vilification or the vilification section that’s new. Those are those are probably the main things that we’d be looking through.
For people from our LGBTIQ plus communities, what should they be doing from this point on to support this legislation being put through? What action can they take?
That’s such a good question. We’re in the process of pulling together a coalition of organisations that support this legislation. So that is organizations outside of the LGBTIQA+ community, because it’s not just about us. So that coalition will be campaigning over the coming weeks and months. There will be petitions you can sign, letters you can write, all of that kind of stuff. So, look out for that.
The intersectionality is going to be important because, as you say, it covers lots of different areas. It covers disability. It covers being a parent, motherhood. All sorts of things, unionism. So for a lot of people, this could affect them on many different fronts.
Yeah. So talk to your families and friends. This is not just about us queers. This is about everyone.
