Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill 2017. As one of the only seats in Western Sydney to vote yes, I want to place on record today the pride I have for my community who did so. I am proud that every day I come in here and speak of having the best people, who roll up their sleeves and work hard to get stuff done. This was an exceptional result for our community. I know that many people are unaffected personally by the discrimination which has prevented people in the LGBTI community from being married. It didn't affect everyone, but we had a large voter turnout. So to the people who weren't affected but who participated and supported the rights of everyone in our community, I want to say thank you.

Although I will always argue that discrimination affects us all, and all should be involved in honourably participating and counting when it comes to ending discrimination, I am also the first member to hold the marginal seat of Lindsay and declare my support publicly for marriage equality. I note that the former member, now out of office, holds a very big opinion, but she holds no power or weight. It's such a shame that she didn't provide any leadership on the issue when it counted or when it could have made a difference. Leadership is critical in this discussion. I didn't seek election to sit on the fence, or sway in the breeze or be swept up in popular decision making; sometimes hard and difficult decisions need to be made. Not every decision will please everyone all of the time but we must always do the least harm when making decisions. As a marginal seat holder, it would have been much easier for me to say nothing and do nothing, but that amounts to me being nothing—a zero contributor in this debate—and I didn't seek election in a hard-fought battle to do that. I want things to change. I want ours to be the best country, with the most generous hearts and open minds; not afraid to make change based only out of fear.

I do accept that changing stuff, remodelling the status quo, is scary for some people and that we should never, ever make a decision based on fear, division, scaremongering or the spreading of mistruths. This is why leadership in this is important. This wasn't an easy process, and many difficult conversations were had with people who wanted to talk about everything other than marriage equality—children of LGBTIQ Australians, their family structure, what's taught in schools and unicorns—although I never disagree with talking about unicorns. But marrying bridges was how ludicrous this public discourse actually became!

To those people who involved themselves and engaged respectfully, I say thank you.

After spending most of my life advocating, standing up for people and fighting for our community, I saw this debate as being no different from the other things that I have done: fighting to end inadequate disability services; making sure public places didn't discriminate against people with access issues; standing up for, and giving a voice to, people who are homeless in our community; and ensuring their needs are met. So, when it came to ending discrimination for so many people in Australia who needed it, there was no difficult decision to make.

I'm a Catholic—my children are also baptised—and I grew up respecting the Bible. What I learnt was to treat people with respect and with dignity and with inherent worth, no matter who they were. I accept that not everyone voted yes—that was their right—but religious freedoms are protected adequately by this bill. To all the people who voted no, I offer this: when we held Lindsay's 10th Welcoming the Babies event, recently, over 80 families came. It was during the thick of the marriage equality survey. A few days before it, my office received one of the saddest phone calls. It was from a mum, one of the two mums of a baby in our area who was registered to attend this event in a public place—at the local Westfield, in fact. She called to say they wouldn't be coming. They were not comfortable coming along because of the debate that was currently underway and the scrutiny placed on their family, their lives and their love for each other. She said: 'We don't feel safe. We're feeling a little bit vulnerable in our community right now.' This made me incredibly angry, but it also made me overwhelmingly sad that, in 2017, two adult women in our own community felt the pain, rejection, persecution and judgement so badly that they excluded themselves from a community event. Nothing in the Bible or my religious teaching ever said that this was okay, no matter who you happened to be. To those mums, I say this: I hope you feel safe, more accepted and part of our community, once and for all, when we pass this bill and finally end all the forms of discrimination that you have endured.

I say to my friend and basketball teammate Sam and to her partner, Kirsty—I never miss an opportunity to mention basketball in here!—that I have never felt more ashamed as a person than when I stood next to you and your boys under the big 'no' message painted in the sky at our children's basketball presentation. It was a hateful reflection of discrimination that your love and your family could be so demeaned at a community event and in such a public display. That moment will stay with me forever. Worse than that were the judgemental conversations that we overheard, the judgement that spiked and how you must have felt, which would have been incredibly difficult. As always, though, you handled it with grace and dignity. To your boys, who had to endure that among their peers: I am so sorry that the attention and the value of your mums' love for each other is so hard for other people to accept.

I offer this to those people who think their freedoms are being trashed by creating a more equal society. To the families of those who didn't make to it see an end to the last form of discrimination levelled at our LGBTIQ community because their loved one could no longer withstand the hurt, the hate and the harassment: I can only imagine that this victory is bittersweet as, for years, you were forced to watch your loved ones accept the hate and bullying that LGBTIQ people have had to endure; they have been five times more likely to die by suicide than those who are not in the LGBTIQ community. There are those whose shoulders carried the weight and suffered as a result of discrimination. And there are those who never lived to see the day when their love was finally accepted and recognised. I want us all to remember those people and their grieving families and never forget the battle it has been to get here. I want us all to remember those who paid the ultimate price for simply being who they were. And with not just this discrimination but with every single piece of discriminatory practice we still involve ourselves in—most notably, those against our first nations people—let's remember this debate and how it feels to end discrimination finally and move forward as a community ending it now rather than later. There is so much more power in inclusion and acceptance and diversity.

To my gay friends in committed relationships—Dan and Chris; the men we met at dinner; Devillers and Craig; and my comrades Steve and Hayden—whose love has been solid for years: congratulations to you for withstanding hate for so long and also for finding someone to love. Thank you for standing up for those people younger than you, less experienced and still questioning their sexuality, for whom this debate has been tough.

Since the announcement of this survey, I have been concerned for the welfare of all of the young people who aren't yet old enough to have been in long-term relationships. There has been a spike in mental health referrals of about 40 per cent since the announcement of the survey and, for this reason alone, I never supported the use of $122 million of taxpayer funds to conduct an opinion poll on other people's love, care and respect for one another. I will always resent that it was done. I cannot understand why other people feel that it is their right to pass judgement over the relationships of other people.

I do, however, take heart that the overall sentiment of Australians is positive, that our country is in front of the parliament and government, that this government is behind and that it's those in here playing catch-up with what our communities actually want. So to the young people in my community and right around Australia who have been struggling to figure out their own sexuality and to understand why the storybook tales of living happily ever after with someone of the opposite sex didn't make sense to you: please take heart that they have had their say and they voted overwhelmingly to accept your love, your diversity and your sexuality. To the young people who I have the pleasure of knowing, Mitch, Mat, his partner, Mat—not confusing at all!—Elissa, Kate, Vanessa and Chauntelle: I look forward to watching your relationships and your love blossom as this country finally matures.

To my colleagues who led the way long before I got here: thank you for being honourable and progressive—in particular, Penny Wong, Louise Pratt, Julian Hill and those opposite for whom the debate is personal. Sometimes, as much as we try, politics is personal. I know something of that and the toll that it takes. Thank you for your courage to be yourselves and share your talent and your skills with us.

Lastly, to Nita Green and Sally Rugg, two of the unsung heroes of this campaign, for whom this survey was deeply personal and also confronting at times: thank you for your tireless work for those in the LGBTI community, to make them feel accepted, and for teaching those who don't accept and respect other people's love how it's done. I'm incredibly proud to know you both. As I always say, no freedom till we're equal—damn right I support it.

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