Co-Convenor's Report

Secretary's Report

Campaigns Report

Events and Fundraising Report

Treasurer's Report

Auditor's Report

Summary of Achievements

Anti-Violence Project

Gay and Lesbian History Project

Thank you

ANNUAL REPORT 2000-2001

Annual report 2000-2001

Co-Convenors Report 2000-2001

The year 2000 - 2001 has been a time of great success, much organisational change and significant challenges for the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. This Annual Report details many of the campaigns, projects and activities of the Lobby. We are pleased to report to members that, going into the coming year, the Lobby is in a strong position for continuing the fight for equal rights for lesbians and gay men in NSW.

At the 2000 Annual General Meeting Katy Reade and Anthony Schembri were elected Convenors after the two-year leadership team of Kathy Sant and Alan Kirkland. We wish to acknowledge the great contribution that both Alan and Kathy have made to lesbian and gay rights in NSW over those years as Convenors. It is important to acknowledge the groundwork they coordinated in developing and implementing the necessary organisational change to secure the Lobby's position into the new century.

The Lobby has had a busy and successful year with many active campaigns and projects. In late 2000 the Attorney General launched the "Acts of Passion" community education campaign in collaboration with our partners such as the Inner City Legal Centre, ACON, Young Lawyers and the Crime Prevention Division of the Attorney General's Department. Throughout the year the Lobby has been active in educating lesbians and gay men of the changes to relationship laws following the enacting of the Property Relationships Amendment Act 1999 which ensured rights for same sex couples in relation to certain State matters. The Lobby has been very pleased to work together with other gay and lesbian and mainstream groups to raise community awareness of these new rights. In fact, at the National Social Policy Conference in 2001, we delivered a paper on "Acts of Passion" and the successful collaboration with government in producing that campaign.

Our relationship with the Attorney General and his Department has been strong throughout 2001. We have developed a solid relationship with the Crime Prevention Division and with the Minister's office. As recently as August 2001 we secured commitments from the Attorney General for further relationship reforms and legislative change to ensure the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of marital status is inclusive of same sex couples. However, the Lobby has been unsuccessful in securing adoption rights and equalising discriminatory age of consent laws and we are committed to continuing the work for equal rights in adoption and age of consent in NSW.

In preparation for the continued fight to reform discriminatory age of consent laws the Lobby has contracted the School of Social Work at the University of New South Wales under the direction of Dr Richard Roberts to provide a research report on the health and welfare implications of discriminatory laws for young gay men. We anticipate the research report to be completed by November 2001 and this will be a valuable addition to our campaign strategy in 2002 for equalising age of consent.

With a federal election close on the agenda, the Lobby has also been working on strengthening our relationships with Federal MPs and federal parties. Our strategy has begun with the ALP and will also extend to The Democrats, The Liberal Party, and The Greens. We have been concentrating on MPs who are in NSW electorates initially, with other state-based rights lobby groups focussing on others. Our relationships with Tanya Plibersek, Anthony Albanese and Shadow Attorney General Robert McClelland, have been particularly good, and have resulted in Labour Leader Kim Beazley's public commitment to reform Superannuation Laws if elected. Tanya Plibersek and Anthony Albanese have shown particularly strong and enduring support of our community, which has assisted our lobbying of other MPs.

The Lobby has continued to develop strategies and campaigns in the area of social rights such as parenting rights for lesbian and gay families. Under the leadership of Gary Hampton, Vikki Harding and Naomi Sharp the Lobby launched our first ever Parenting Consultations Report which highlighted the discrimination and harassment experienced by many lesbian and gay families. Our report, co-authored by Naomi Sharp and Kirsty Machon and launched together with Rainbow Babies, was an important first step in the development of our social rights agenda and we received significant national and local media attention on discrimination confronted by gay and lesbian families.

In partnership with the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras we were also able to highlight parenting issues in the 2001 Mardi Gras Parade. The Lobby parade entry was one of the largest we have seen in some years. Our parade entry highlighted age of consent, superannuation and parenting issues. We wish to acknowledge the support and partnership of Mardi Gras in working with us to highlight parenting issues in the 2001 Parade.

The next stage of our parenting rights campaign work is the development of a community awareness campaign around the discrimination faced by lesbian and gay families as well as the continued support of our parenting rights working party. We have also contracted Jenni Millbank from the Law School at the University of Sydney to review the research and literature on lesbian and gay families and this research report will be completed and published by November 2001.

Clearly one of the highlights of 2001 was the Gay and Lesbian History Project coordinated by Committee Member Michael Flynn. Thanks to a Centenary of Federation Grant the Lobby was able to research and host an extraordinary exhibition of Sydney lesbian and gay history at Parliament House. Clearly the Exhibition served to highlight that despite history books often ignoring our stories, the story of gay and lesbian history in Sydney is vibrant and active. The hard work and commitment of the History Project Working Party and Project researcher Kimberly O'Sullivan ensured the project was a popular exhibition during the Mardi Gras festival.

There have been many other successful projects and activities throughout 2000 - 2001 including the Department of Education ensuring the availability of anti-homophobia resources developed by the then Lobby's Anti-Violence Project in every school in NSW. This comes after six years of vigorous lobbying and campaigning.

We coordinated a campaign at Census time to inform lesbians and gay men of the option to include their names in the Census Time Capsule as well as the availability in the Census to recognise same sex relationships. Media from across Australia picked up this campaign, raising further awareness in mainstream media of the Lobby's work and gay and lesbian rights.

We are also pleased to report that throughout the year the Lobby has continued to build upon our working relationships with local gay and lesbian media maintaining a regular media presence in the community newspapers and magazines. A number of contacts with mainstream press have been developed and we continued to provide information on our work via 'Gaywaves', Out FM and our regular Lobby newsletter.

At the time of writing this report, the Lobby has launched the "Superannuation=Superdiscrimination" campaign designed to highlight the discriminatory nature of current superannuation laws and mobilise gay and lesbian community support in campaigning for reform. The Super campaign, in addition to rasing awareness, is also designed to encourage lesbians and gay men to complete a will and lobby local federal MP's for reform to this increasing component of our working remuneration. We thank Committee members and volunteers who kindly acted as models for the campaign posters and very special thanks to Committee Member Shane Garland for his design and desktop publishing of the campaign materials and other recent Lobby publications.

In addition to the many campaigns and projects of the Lobby we've continued to receive a large and steady flow of requests for information and advice by community members on legal and rights issues as well as an increasing number of requests for information by secondary and tertiary students on lesbian and gay rights. Thanks to the hard work of our Webmaster Jason Cupitt we have been able to provide a revamped and regularly update website at www.glrl.org.au. The website has been a valuable tool in communicating with members and others seeking information on the Lobby's work.

The Lobby underwent a number of organisational changes that we believe secure the Lobby's medium term sustainability. We have given priority to fundraising and events with strategies to diversify our income stream. We devolved the health grant component of the Lobby, which has operated the AVP, and along with it the AVP name and logo. We have developed a volunteer strategy including the appointment of a Committee Member with responsibility for volunteers. The Lobby moved offices from room 4 to room 6 at 94 Oxford Street. This room provides a more comfortable working environment for staff and volunteers. The move helped to clean up and better organise the Lobby office space with an opportunity to archive much of the Lobby's earlier work and publications.

The devolution of the AVP to the successful tender organisation, namely ACON, was extremely time consuming for the Lobby's Executive and Committee. We are confident however that the service delivery and anti-violence social campaign work will be better undertaken by another gay and lesbian community organisation and ACON is well resourced to do so. Devolution of the AVP has facilitated an improved use of our limited volunteer and financial resources to our core work of human rights campaign work for lesbians and gay men. We wish ACON every success with the new AVP.

Other organisational change included the resignation in May 2001 of Co-Convenor Katy Reade to allow Katy to concentrate more time into her postgraduate study. We thank Katy for her time with us and the leadership shown especially in developing the Lobby's response to the Howard Government attack upon lesbians' access to assisted reproductive technology. Katy together with Committee Member Naomi Sharp appeared before the Senate Inquiry into IVF and we thank them both for their preparation of the Lobby strategy and appearing before the Inquiry to give evidence.

Longstanding GLRL member and Committee member Alex Sosnov was appointed by the Committee as acting female Co-Convenor and Committee Member Nikki Maloney took over responsibility for the Events and Fundraising Working Party.

Throughout the year the Events team ensured a strong Lobby presence at many community events such as the Stonewall Week celebrations, Mardi Gras Fair Day and at Harbour Party. The financial security of the Lobby continues to be one of the major threats to the Lobby's long-term sustainability. This is a matter that the incoming Committee will need to address as a matter of priority especially given the uncertainty surrounding the future of the Harbour Party, which has been the Lobby's major income source for the past few years.

We wish to acknowledge First Fleet Productions (Harbour Party) for the generous income in 2000. Without the income from First Fleet the Lobby simply would be unable to do our work such as our Superannuation=Superdiscrimination campaign. We are extremely grateful to the Directors of First Fleet for their support and commitment to the work of the Lobby.

Another major provider of Lobby income through 2001 was JoJo Fernandez of Nitegroove (Frisky Parties), without whose generous financial support the Lobby would be unable to do our campaign work. Congratulations this year on the Frisky Party's 5th Birthday.

Thanks also to South Sydney City Council for the rental subsidy for our office and the Gay and Lesbian Business Association for the grant towards our superannuation campaign. Thanks go to Home night club for their generous support from the Harbour Party After Party. We also thank ACON and Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras for various in kind donations in 2001.

Thanks to Anthony Hillis who stepped in at short notice to take on our Office Manager position during Tim Moyes leave. We thank Anthony and Tim for the commitment and professionalism shown during the year in their work coordinating the Lobby office activities. Anthony also acted as the Lobby's media officer during Mardi Gras and with Anthony's flair and dedication we secured an improved media presence during the Mardi Gras festival time.

David Jones provided trade improvement work in the new Lobby office, and we are very grateful for his time in assisting us with electrical work.

We wish to thank the serving Committee Members for their continued enthusiasm for lesbian and gay equality and for their friendship and support during the year; we thank the many volunteers who helped with various events such as our parade entry, Fair Day, Stonewall Week, and parenting and superannuation rights campaigns.

There are a number of challenges that confront the Lobby as we move into 2002. The continued attempts by conservative members of parliament and the media to wind back our rights remain a very real and ongoing threat. Elaine Nile's recent attempt to dilute anti-discrimination laws and John Howard's assault on the rights of lesbians with regard to IVF are clear examples of this tide, which seek to not only limit our rights but turn the clock back on equality for lesbians and gay men. Given the enthusiasm of our volunteers and members the Lobby is well placed to respond and fight these attacks in 2002.

Anthony M. Schembri and Alexandra Sosnov
Co-Convenors