Since 2000, I have done campaigns directed at every Prime Minister and Premier of Queensland, except Annastacia Palaszczuk. Television advertisements were directed at Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard, and Kevin Rudd, as well as newspaper advertisements against the prime ministers and radio adverts against the premiers, along with endless letter-writing campaigns.
One anti marriage equality campaign was about why people can’t marry the dead, the dog or the TV. I got sick to death of MPs telling me why people would want to, plus another group always talking about polyamory.
Once I sent them enough reasons, enough times about why the above wouldn’t happen, they gave up on that logic and moved on to other logic, just as nonsensical.
Another campaign consisted of thousands of postcards printed with various messages on the front. These cards were found mainly in coffee shops and movie theatres and could be taken by anyone interested.
This campaign was relatively cheap, but we had thousands of cards with several messages. It was an affordable and easy way to reach the everyday person.
Congratulations You’re Having a Lesbian
The most controversial campaign was “Congratulations, you are having a Lesbian”. It was a television advert showing a young woman having an ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby, but the nurse said, “Congratulations, you are having a lesbian”. The advert was also shown on a billboard at a main intersection in Brisbane. Shock Jocks were showing outrage, and there was discussion all over social media.
I then wrote an article for Mamamia, including a photo of me heavily pregnant with my gay son, asking the question, “How do you know if you are or aren’t having an LGBTQIA+ baby?” The article was very well received, and they ran the story twice.
Give Malcolm a Backbone
One of the funniest campaigns was called “Give Malcolm a Backbone”. I had five motorbikes with billboards, a photo of Malcolm Turnbull’s head, and a skeleton underneath, all towed around the Sydney CBD. The wording was “Give Malcolm a Backbone”, as the campaign name suggests. We even had a girl standing with a billboard at the front of his local office for the whole week. I thought this was funny because no one from the office approached her. Plus, I never got a call asking me to stop the motorbikes.
Finally, Malcolm Turnbull decided to have a postal vote done by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which wasn’t compulsory. Voting Australians were sent a paper, and we had to respond within two months with a YES or NO. I believe the governments logic was by giving people such a long time to return the paper with a YES or NO, was the hope that people would either forget to do what was required or lose the form.
Worse still the ABS is basically an organisation that gathers information from surveys and there is nothing requiring them to act on gathered information. Fortunately, for us people did vote, and they did send the forms back. Best of all, the majority (over 61%) voted YES, which was good for us.
We stepped up the pressure and Malcolm Turnbull knew it was time to stop procrastinating and act. His next and final step was to have a free vote in Parliament on December 7th, 2017.
This was successful, but it could have failed. He could have done this at the very beginning and (win or lose) saved the country $120,000 000 and saved many LGBTQIA+ people anxiety and depression.
This debate, even though we won, brought out the haters and the homophobes. Many in the LGBTQIA+ community were harassed and bullied to such levels their resilience was eroded, and suicide was the way to escape. Government inaction and negativity through this whole process made the homophobes feel they could do and say whatever they wanted.
Give Malcolm a Voice
Another campaign directed at Malcolm Turnbull was Give Malcom a Voice, plus several other MPs. We had photos of Liberal MPs we knew were supportive, but we removed their mouth from the photos. Then later Malcolm is standing in a church ready to hold a wedding but can’t speak.
Another campaign we did was called Plan B and Liberal MPs had no mouths, which meant they had no voice and couldn’t speak out about the injustice of marriage inequality and the high cost of the proposed Plebiscite, which was not compulsory.
Marriage Debate in Parliament December 2017
I will never forget the week of the marriage debate. I sat in the gallery all week, listening and smiling at some MPs while listening and glaring at others. My logic was that I had been in this debate since the beginning, and I wanted to see it through to the end.
I sat with a rainbow flag around my shoulders. I listened to some who had previously said “No” to a vote suddenly talk positively; I heard some talk the most amazing amount of rubbish about all the terrible things that would occur in this nation if marriage equality became a reality. And the funniest part to me was how many LGBTQIA+ activists raced towards the media to tell their story when it was all over.
My thoughts were, I don’t need to do that anymore; I can just be quiet. As it happened, I was interviewed but it was as I was wandering through a crowd.
Regardless of the win, there were a lot of tears, tears of joy, tears for what was still to come, which is/was the debate about religious discrimination, which is a spin-off.
It’s a funny story – the whole process was set up to fail. There were eight amendments to be made to the proposed legislation should the vote pass. The amendments could have all been voted on at once, which meant it only had one chance of failing. The Coalition insisted that each amendment be voted on individually, and if one failed, the whole process failed, and the LGBTQIA+ community was never to get another chance.
But, as it happened, all eight amendments passed, the vote passed, and marriage equality became a reality. And religious discrimination has been an issue since then. I believe it’s the losers picking the winner’s prize.
Read on for some funny MP Stories that occurred while we were lobbying for Marriage Equality
One day, Rodney and I were meeting with an MP soon after he had been elected. The topic was marriage equality. Things were going smoothly until he suggested that “they” could get married in NZ. I said it was true, but they were no longer married as soon as the plane landed. He foolishly stated, “Well, they must be patient.”
I felt myself slowly rise out of the chair. I said, “You have been here 5 minutes, I have been walking these halls for years, and you tell me they need to be patient” With that, the meeting ended, and my opinion was confirmed about this MP was because of his logic on other issues is just as simple-minded. The only good thing about this MP is he makes nice eye candy.
I was meeting with a female MP, with another PFLAG mum and she was insistent that most people did not want marriage equality. To prove her point, she called her adviser into the room and demanded that she tell us her thoughts on the issue. Of course, she said she disagreed. Next, she had a Uni student doing placement with her who had only started that day. She looked at him and demanded a response on the issue; of course, he also said No. Finally, there was another student doing placement, and she did the same thing with her, and of course, she gave the same answer: No.
I continued with my logic, and she said, “It wouldn’t matter what I said. You would have an answer!” I responded with a simple Yes.
When the meeting was finished, we stood up to leave, and she insisted on taking us to where we were going next. As we walked down the hallway, she told us she had a lesbian daughter who had a long-term partner and a child. I was stunned; then, I didn’t have a response.
Another MP I met with one day was ranting about his daughter being lesbian and how she chose to be that way. And I asked how she felt about her father having such strong negative views.
He instantly turned on me and shouted, “Don’t you go there!” at me. I just sat there. Then he started yelling, “You tell anyone, and I will sue you”. I thought, why did you tell me your daughter was lesbian?
One day, I was in a specific Attorney General’s office giving his Adviser and the Prime Minister’s Adviser a tough time when the Attorney General walked in and thought he would save them.
He sat and leaned forward and, after a couple of minutes, said, “If I were your adviser, I would tell you…………….” I said, “If you were my adviser, I would sack you”.
He wasn’t quite sure after that, so he mumbled a few sentences and left the conversation at that. Many felt because I was an older female they could talk down to me and I wouldn’t react, but he was wrong; especially when i knew that he was only trying to divert attention away from the main topic.
One day I was in a Shadow Attorney’s office with two other men discussing marriage equality. The three men were so busy talking, I couldn’t speak my thoughts. I was even sarcastic and asked, in a reasonably loud voice “Would anyone like me to get them a coffee?” but they still ignored me.
I was so sick of being ignored I banged my hands down on the table and said, “Would you listen to me?” Shocked, the men stopped talking and looked at me, and then four were in the conversation.
Another day, I was waiting to see a Senator and I had two Mums with me. As he entered the room, he looked at us and gruffly said “I don’t care what you say, you are not going to get me to change my mind”. I said “Ok, but what is your opinion?” I laughed when he said, “Of course they should get married!”
When I told him that was what we were hoping, he asked why we were there? I told him we didn’t know his thoughts or any others if we hadn’t met them before, which of course was the case with him.
But what was really funny to me was he thought because we looked conservative, we must have been right wing Christians. So, who knows how he was thinking we would be dressed?
