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PRESS RELEASE - 2 March 2001

MARDI GRAS SENDS STRONG MESSAGE OF EQUALITY IN ELECTION YEAR.

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) believes tomorrow's 24th Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras will help keep important law reform issues in the spotlight in the lead up to the Federal Election later this year.

GLRL Convenors Anthony Schembri and Katy Reade acknowledge the many opportunities the Mardi Gras festival and parade provide to members of lesbian and gay communities to place their issues and views on the public agenda.

The GLRL welcomes the fact that this year's official lead float in the parade has a parenting theme. Gay and Lesbian parenting rights is one issue the GLRL has worked on closely, most recently through conducting consultations with gay men and lesbians to identify the discrimination they still face in this area.

This theme is particularly timely, considering that last Tuesday, a Senate committee rejected the Howard Government's plans to introduce amendments to the federal Sex Discrimination Act that would allow Australian States to discriminate against lesbian and single women in relation to the provision of IVF and Assisted Reproduction Technology services.

While parenting and the visibility of lesbian and gay families will be prominent themes this year, many other topical political issues will be raised by floats in the parade. "One of the great things about the parade is that it does not represent just the one viewpoint. It welcomes the expressions of a broad range of views within lesbian and gay communities" said Reade.

The GLRL float will feature early in the parade and, in addition to highlighting the issue of lesbian and gay parenting, will also focus on two other key law reform issues - federal superannuation laws and the equalisation of the age of consent in NSW.
Federal Superannuation laws currently ignore same sex relationships. As such, many Australian lesbian and gay fund contributors essentially subsidise their heterosexual counterparts. The Superannuation (Entitlements of Same-sex Couples) Bill 2000, currently before Federal Parliament, seeks to redress this imbalance.

The third priority area for reform to feature in the GLRL float is the unequal age of consent in NSW, which currently discriminates against gay men. "Despite Justice James Woods recommendations for reform and the recent repeal of a similar law in the United Kingdom, the NSW Parliament continues to criminilise the behaviour of young gay men and maintain an approach out of step with modern Australia and behind much of the world" said Schembri.