Labor’s Pledge of $78k To Australia’s LGBTQIA+ Media – Here’s How It Happened
Image: Star Observer covers from 1998, 2024, and 2004. Photos: Star Observer archives.
Australia’s independent LGBTQIA+ media needs all the love it can get. The Albanese government recently pledged to provide $78,000 to Australian LGBTQIA+ media outlets – including $26,000 to the Star Observer — if re-elected.
This commitment came about from a significant lobbying campaign and a lot of hard work from myself and the team at Star Observer. We worked closely with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s office, Tanya Plibersek and Labor MPs, which led to this one-off payment to support not just ourselves, but several Australian LGBTQIA+ media outlets.
And this pledge could not have come at a more critical time.
At the very moment that our community is under threat from a myriad of neo-fascist nutters, transphobic thugs and drag-hating buffoons, Australia’s pink press is struggling. Over the last year, Meta has “deprioritised” news on its platform, delivering less eyeballs to independently produced, queer journalism.
Meanwhile, Google has introduced AI-generated answers to search queries. News and information are disseminated and presented without links to the original stories – which means even fewer people are reading original Australian queer news content through the world’s most commonly used search engine.
As if this weren’t enough – it is becoming more and more difficult to produce old fashioned print publications in Australia. Over the last few years many of the nation’s printing presses have been shuttered. With fewer presses operating, costs continue to escalate and getting hard copies of any publication out on the street is proving more and more challenging.
It is little wonder that in the lead up to Easter, LGBTQIA+ publication QNews announced it would no longer be printing any magazine editions – after distributing a print edition in Queensland for 25 years.
The Star Observer remains committed to employing real LGBTQIA+ journalists, writers, editors and photographers, to generating wide-ranging queer news, to giving voice to our community and to getting LGBTQIA+ stories out there as widely as possible.
Since 1979, we have made print publications freely available to our community and its allies. And we intend to continue delivering news in print, beyond the control of corporate algorithms and an AI-generated agenda.
Along with our website and other digital channels, the Star Observer reaches a vast queer audience, which is growing every day as the LGBTQIA+ community gets larger and larger with every generation.
And Labor’s pledge to put $26,000 into the Star Observer will help us stay in touch with you, our loyal readers and ever-growing community.
All up, Labor has committed to make a one-off $78,000 investment into LGBTQIA+ media in Australia, split three ways: between the Star Observer, Out in Perth and QNews.
This commitment is a direct result of a lobbying campaign by the Star Observer. Our campaign began late last year, when the federal government announced that it was investing $15 million into local and disadvantaged newsrooms via the News Media Relief Program.
There was just one small issue (or rather, a significant oversight): while local suburban mastheads and First Nations and multicultural publishers were eligible to apply, Australia’s LGBTQIA+ media was completely excluded from the program.
And we weren’t too happy about that – so we spoke up. And thankfully, the government was willing to listen.
In response to months of petitioning from the team at Star Observer, LGBTQIA+ media has now been added to all future funding rounds of the News Media Relief Program.
And to make sure there were no hard feelings for having overlooked our fabulous community, as a stopgap measure, the Albanese government pledged a total of $78,000 to the Star Observer and two other queer media outlets, should Labor win office.
We will happily accept the help. And with it, Star Observer will continue to inform, mobilise and engage our community with gusto, editorial independence, and of course, unwavering and unstoppable queer pride.
