What Scott Morrison’s re-election means for LGBTIQ+ Australians

What Scott Morrison’s re-election means for LGBTIQ+ Australians
Image: Image: Scott Morrison / Facebook.

Australians are still in shock over one of the most surprising federal election victories in recent memory, which saw the Coalition re-elected for a third consecutive term.

Despite countless opinion polls suggesting Labor was the overwhelming favourite to topple the Liberal-National Coalition, Prime Minister Scott Morrison ultimately swept the Coalition to victory over the weekend.

While the final outcome of the election is still unclear, the ABC has projected that the Coalition will win 75 seats, Labor will win 65, six will be shared among independents, and five are still yet to be decided.

Following Labor’s astonishing defeat, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten announced that he would step down as leader, saying in his sombre concession speech, “we are a resilient and proud movement and we never give up”.

So what does the Coalition’s re-election mean for LGBTIQ+ communities in Australia?

Late last year, following a spill motion that saw a majority 45 Liberal MPs vote against then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull being leader of the party, Scott Morrison was announced as Australia’s 30th Prime Minister.

Up until that point, his track record on LGBTIQ+ rights has been tenuous at best.

Morrison, a former Minister for Immigration and No voter in the postal survey, had been adamant that it was “okay to say No” during the marriage equality debate.

He also defended Israel Folau in 2018 when the rugby star came under fire for posting a handful of anti-gay messages on social media, saying that “hell was God’s plan for gay people”.

In the nine months following his ascent to the top position, Morrison did little to improve his relationship with LGBTIQ+ communities.

He was slammed for peddling “harmful” and “ignorant” rhetoric around trans and gender diverse young people after calling instructors in trans inclusion in schools “gender whisperers”, and repeatedly delayed moves to protect LGBTIQ+ students and teachers at faith-based schools from religious discrimination.

He also came under fire for saying that he sent his children to private schools to avoid Safe Schools, and later said that conversion therapy wasn’t “an issue [he was] focused on at all”. (In the Coalition’s defence, the Liberal Party Federal Director Andrew Hirst subsequently said the Morrison Government didn’t support conversion therapy.)

In the lead up to the recent federal election, both Labor and the Greens made a number of pre-election commitments for LGBTIQ+ communities that far outweighed the promises of the Coalition, as evidenced by a survey called Rainbow Votes 2019, which was sent to the major parties by Equality Australia.

On the positive side, the Coalition announced that if elected, it would channel $3 million into LGBTI mental health funding, with a funding commitment to support the National LGBTI Health Alliance and its suicide prevention program MindOUT, as well as a confirmed boost to Qlife, with funding of $2 million over two years.

Speaking to the Star Observer, Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman also said that the government would “get on with the job” of removing religious discrimination against students in faith-based schools.

However, beyond an inquiry, it’s still not clear what the Coalition’s plans are to tackle religious exemptions, after failing to deliver on a promise to act urgently late last year. Rather, Morrison proposed amendments to a Labor Bill that would have increased discrimination, leaving the Bill dead in the water in 2018.

On the conversion therapy front, the Coalition committed to “working with states and territories, which have legal responsibility in this area, to ensure such practices are not supported or occurring”.

However, this response evades federal reform, such as tightening the regulation of school chaplains.

While Labor and the Greens made strong statements against medical interventions on intersex bodies, the Coalition instead referred to the ongoing inquiry by the Australian Human Rights Commission.

And for the many LGBTIQ+ people beyond our borders, it is clear that asylum seekers will continue to suffer indefinitely under Coalition policies on Nauru and Manus.

For the Coalition’s full responses to Equality Australia’s survey, visit Equality Australia.

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3 responses to “What Scott Morrison’s re-election means for LGBTIQ+ Australians”

  1. It was certainly a miracle as ScoMO said that Liberal Coalition got back in. People in Australia are very conservative, and they need to know exactly the policies of who they vote in. It seems to me that ScoMO isn’t against immigration, just illegal immigration. He is for the workers, but also for small and big business thriving. He is a Christian, but then so are over 51% of Australians, many of whom are gay!

    We need to support and keep on the case of our politicians, they are representing us, spending our money.

  2. So it appears that Jesus approves of child torture, illegally imprisoning innocent refugees, lying, sloth, greed, corruption, hatred, racism, xenophobia, fascism, Nazism, ecocide, nepotism, theft, elder abuse, slavery, fraud, vice, adultery, hypocrisy, animal torture, etc, etc, etc.

    These happy-clapping sociopaths REALLY need to find a new imaginary friend. Oh well, the Great Unwashed have bleated, albeit with some fraudulent assistance from Obergruppenführer Gestapotato & his fake how to vote forms. Oh, and the fake AEC-style corflute, along with nursing home residents being “assisted” by LNP staffers who bussed into facilities, & elderly voters being told – AGAIN – that if they DIDN’T vote as shown on the LNP sheet, they votes would be invalid, and let’s not forget the signage of opponents being vandalised or removed, AND don’t fotget the WeChat farce, where legions of trolls bombarded Chinese users with a flood of fake information & stories about Labor & the Greens!

    Then there’s Palmer. $80 million to buy a government. He woos the ex-LNP voters who are too stupid to think, gets their votes, hands those as preferences to Morriscum, and VOILA! He has his mine miraculously approved.

    I have never been as disgusted with Australia as I am today. The people showed that they are not only stupid, but myopic, greedy, and savagely cruel. A young family will be sent to Sri Lanka to list likely face death. Refugees will be illegally detained until they lose their minds, animals will be cooked alive in their own shit, the poor will ve persecuted, the elderly will languish in faeces, innumerable animals will become extinct, the Reef will die the Great Artesian Basin draining will destroy agriculture and native flora & fauna as salt is gradually drawn in, and why? Because rich boomers are obscenely greedy poor boomers are apparently idiots, and young voters would appear to breathtakingly selfish & incapable of comprehending facts.

    I can’t express the despair I feel. Fur the first time in my 52 years, I have no hope. Given the chance to pick fairness, prosperity & hope, Australia chose cruelty, poverty, and destruction.

  3. Well I am astounded by , and very pleased with the result. Not because of ScoMo winning but because we stopped a Shorten led government. Have always been very anti Labor and always put them last. As a gay man I thought the Coalition’s policies very reasonable for the gay community, and have no opinion about what is going on in schools