Australian LGBTI Awards in doubt after organisers go into liquidation
Image: The Australian LGBTI Awards ceremony. Photo: Facebook
The future of the Australian LGBTI Awards are up in the air after organisers Twin Media Group were placed into liquidation as a result of a financial dispute between the company’s two directors.
Next year’s event would have been the fourth Australian LGBTI Awards and was due to take place in February, though the awards’ website has been in existence since 2015.
Twin media also ran the European Diversity Awards which were due to be held in November, the original LGBTI Awards in the UK, and the New Zealand LGBTI Awards, which were also due to be held in February.
The Awards were financed through corporate sponsorships and ticket sales.
The company’s directors are Sydney-based Silke Bader, publisher of Lesbians on the Loose (LOTL) magazine and UK-based Linda Riley, who created the original LGBTI Awards in the UK and is the owner of DIVA magazine.
The Federal Court appointed a liquidator to wind-up Twin Media Group in June but it has only become public knowledge now.
Liquidator Jamieson Louttit has blamed poor strategic management and infighting between the company’s directors for its financial woes.
Riley is seeking an appeal to the company being wound up and has claimed that this order was sought without her knowledge and consent.
The total value of Twin Media Group and its assets is estimated by the liquidator to be $196,581, while the company owes $174,695, including $65,000 to Bader.
Riley, in turn, claims that $130,000 is owed to her and to Twin Media, and she claims that Bader paid large sums from the Twin Media Group account to her own companies.
Riley told ABC News that she has no intention of continuing her involvement in the Australian event.
Bader hopes to continue the awards and registered several business names including “Australian LGBTQI Awards” and “Asia Pacific LGBTQI Awards “under a separate company called Iris Media and Events in March.
