Lobbies welcome rights consultation

The Australian Coalition for Equality (ACE) and Australian Marriage Equality (AME) have welcomed the start of a consultation process by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) into discrimination against people on the grounds of sexuality and sex and gender identity.

AME national convenor Alex Greenwich told Southern Star Observer he found it encouraging that the AHRC had nominated the right to marry as an area of discrimination against GLBTI people alongside the lack of federal anti-discrimination legislation covering sexuality and sex and gender identity.

“We are grateful to the AHRC for further highlighting that the ban on same-sex marriage is a significant issue of discrimination, and we hope the Government considers this with an open heart and an open mind,” Greenwich said.

“As the Government will continue to silo the issue of marriage equality we encourage the GLBTI community to continue to express the importance of equality to the AHRC and indeed the Government.”

ACE spokesman Corey Irlam said the consultation was an opportunity for the community to present to Government a broadly united position on the protections GLBTI people wanted under federal law.

“It’s vitally important that the GLBTI community share their stories and contribute to these consultations to achieve the best possible outcome,” Irlam said.

He said that while the Government had promised, during the election campaign, to introduce protections on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender status, it hadn’t committed to protections on the grounds of relationship status. ACE will ask the Senate to amend the Sex and Age Discrimination Amendment Act while it was before a Senate committee.

Irlam said protection on the grounds of relationship status already had the support of the Coalition and the Greens.

“Given there is broad support for relationship status and Government is amending the Sex Discrimination Act anyway, there’s no logical reason to leave same-sex couples out of the existing legislation for another year,” he said.

The consultation process, which started last week, will run to November 26. Community members can make submissions via the AHRC website or by mail.

The Commission will also host roundtable discussions in Sydney and Melbourne on October 28 and November 9 respectively.

People from outside of NSW and Victoria who need assistance to attend a roundtable discussion may apply to the Commission for financial aid.

info: Visit www.humanrights.gov.au/human_rights/lgbti/lgbticonsult