Let’s ditch Telstra, say LGBTI business leaders
Image: Photo: Instagram via @telstra
AUSTRALIA’S leading LGBTI business groups have come together to call on the community to boycott Telstra.
After Telstra caved in to pressure from the Australian Catholic Church to no longer publicly support marriage equality, Melbourne’s Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Business and Enterprise (GLOBE), the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Business Association (SGLBA) and the Brisbane Gay and Lesbian Business Network (GLBN) issued a statement last night urging people to ditch Telstra.
GLBN, GLOBE and the SGLBA all have Telstra employees who are active members of their networks and the organisations are concerned about the impact that this would have on their staff.
They said Telstra’s removal of support for equal marriage goes against the equality message the company has trumpeted to the LGBTI community, and does a disservice to its LGBTI employees and the community members who have supported the teleco.
“The messages to big business should be clear. If you do not support our community, then we do not support you,” GLOBE president David Micallef said.
“I have been concerned by the hate filled discussion that this news from Telstra has generated and the negative impact it has already had on LGBTI people in the community. GLOBE will not accept any sponsorship or financial support from Telstra, and have already taken steps to cancel the organisation’s phone account.
“Supporting the LGBTI community is more than marching in Mardi Gras or having a stall at Midsumma and then jumping ship when things get hard – it shows an utter disrespect for the community and what it stands for.”
Telstra participates in ACON Pride in Diversity’s (PID) Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI) — a benchmarking instrument to measure LGBTI workplace inclusion — and its president, Dawn Hough, said PID does not require members support specific LGBTI causes as a condition of membership.
“However, the AWEI… does include a section which encourages participating organisations to support LGBTI inclusion issues,” she said.
“As a workplace-focussed social inclusion program of ACON, we consider specific issues directly linked to inclusion, such as marriage equality, to be fundamental to improving the health outcomes for all Australians. We are a proud supporter of marriage equality in Australia.”
Australian Marriage Equality national director Rodney Croome has also voiced his concerns about Telstra’s backing down on marriage equality.
“Marriage equality is good for businesses because it will foster more inclusive workplaces, send a positive message to customers, help recruitment of skilled workers from overseas and boost Australia’s international reputation,” he said.
“This is why 870 Australian businesses have backed the reform (for marriage equality).”
Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn issued a statement yesterday saying while Telstra still supported marriage equality, it would no longer “publicly participate in the debate further”.
“However, this position was interpreted by some as us abandoning our tradition of supporting diversity and inclusion, be it in the community or in our workplace,” he said.
“This could not be further from the truth.”
hmmm…..has it dawned on you yet that Australians actually don’t want gay marriage – that’s why there is the constant “delay” and political maneuverings to stop it ever happening….and guess what?…..when 2019 comes round, all the horrors of gay marriage in other countries (plus all the other marriage “options” being pushed like polygamy, etc) will intensify and start to be revealed thereby making it even less likely that gay marriage will become legal in Australia. All the talk of “live and let live” will be shown as false and all the propaganda slogans like “marriage equality” and “love is love” will no longer work. Also, the conservative elements in Australia will build and build and build as a reaction to the shove-it-down-our-throats, intimidation, name calling and bullying tactics by same sex advocates, thereby making the opposition to same sex marriage stronger – you guys/girls/others/both/not-both/half-both-and-half-not-both/trans/fluid/no-idea people have woken a sleeping giant. Countries that have legalised same sex marriages are going to see a right-wing, conservative backlash allowing same sex marriage laws to be reversed and as the same sex people get more desperate to push their cause, the more ugly their campaign becomes. I thought that this would be obvious,…..and maintaining the “perpetual victimhood” routine (with all the fake emotionalism and manipulation) will be ignored. Even the hysterical claims of “discrimination” won’t work because it is the gay lifestyle that causes all the gay hang-ups – the problems are self-inflicted. But most importantly, our young children who are being sexualised and socially engineered by Marxist strategies in our schools are going to learn how they are being abused by the gay advocates so they won’t be such easy pickings as they are now. The pretty coloured rainbow flags and endless raining glitterati will no longer look fun and carefree. Sorry, but the same sex movement is running out of steam because it has reached it’s “Emporer has no clothes” moment.
Talking absolute bullshit. Are you Tony Abbott by the way?! Because you are both complete cunts!
Do not feed this troll.
“Neil Aitchison” Please see a psychologist and get some help or call lifeline. Your comments make no sense to me and it appears to me you are simply trolling.
Love the divergent views on this subject. The rusted on lefties can’t help blaming the Liberal government – it’s all their fault …and of course Malcolm Turnbull has funded it. Then there’s the genius who’s going to boycott the election and also the plebiscite itself – sheesh! No wonder the vile hypocritical Catholic Church can continue to harass us and get away with it- some of our responses to their torment look positively professional compared to some of ours – we are all over the shop!
I have been in a gay relationship for over 26 years and I am boycotting both the federal election and the prerequisite too! For far too long we have been fooled and spun by all political parties and no real change has happened yet! It is 2016 and we are so far behind on still banning marriage equality to the point of being ashamed to be Australian.
Yes some us will die from the persecution Malcolm Turnbull is unleashing in the mother of all tax payer funded hate campaigns called a plebiscite. They can try and break us, but we have been targeted before. Police have killed us, we have been imprisoned, we have been studied every which way, yet we we are still here more determined and we have come back. We are here and we are staying.
Telstra is just acting on the intervention of Malcolm Turnbull and his board representatives. Yes it is shitty of Telsta. Telstra embarrassed the government and action was swift against the CEO and board.
We are strong, we are invincible . You can sit on a bus and listen to the Turnbull funded hate campaign liken you to a pedo, or rave about how your destructive marriage will destroy society, you can even put up with some arseholes spit on you, or you can fly off to New Zealand and get married.
I did. It was fantastic. Marriage is 1% legal, the rest is about your community. It is not up to strangers, it is up to you and your partner, your community. Have the reception in Australia. You can still ask for equality in the law, but you will do this as married person.
My sister spent her childhood raped by a priest. I have friends who were abused by nuns. I switched off the Catholic Church from an early age. I am one of the Forgotton Generation, and any child where I grew up would have wanted a safe and loving home no matter what the sexuality of the parents. As for Turnbull, he puts money into tax havens like the Caymond Islands, now he is using our taxes to fund his hate campaign called a plebiscite.
We will peacefully fight Turnbull and Tesltra as we have always done against those who seek our destruction. We will win, as we always do overtime.
Both Tories and Labor never change! I am boycotting the federal election coming up soon and boycotting the marriage plebiscite! Join me everyone! Australia is a complete embarrassment to the rest of the whole western developed world on goat track highways, very slow Telecommunications networks and banning gay marriage. I would of thought the dirt on the Panama Papers would have dug up some dirt on money-laundering Cayman Island style Malcolm Turnbull, but I was wrong! Instead it got Tory David Cameron the prime minister of the UK!
AGREED!
Telstra is the most corrupted corporation within Australia! The CEO David Thodey had to go to a Senate inquiry at a Committee to explain a missing $690 million payment back in April 2014! He said “I do not recall!”. What a joke this company truly is!
Telstra it’s how we disconnect!
Just now the Marriage Equality Bill just lapsed in the Australian Parliament! The bill now has to be re-introduced again next year when the parliament opens again as the 45th session. I knew this would happen. No gay marriage in Australia until after 2019 at least! The bill will only pass when the stupid shit stops within the Parliament!
Telstra only caved in, because of this bigoted Liberal government and the child molestering Catholic Church. The Liberal party DENIED a conscience vote, every time a vote on a marriage bill was called! The next parliament will do exactly the same thing and still not pass a marriage equality bill, because the Liberals will DENY a conscience vote again and again! 2019 or 2020 (at the next federal election after this one) is more realistic to pass a bill on marriage equality! This is no surprise really, it was to be expected all this time! I fully 100% guarantee that marriage equality will come to Australia on the July 1, 2020!
I fully agree, Australia will finally have marriage equality at midnight on July 1, 2020!
Marriage is already available to everyone -even gays – if they marry the opposite sex, but the gays don’t want this…..but what they do wanting, Harley, is to CHANGE marriage into some different from what it currently is (a family unit institution) to an emotionally/sexually driven, feel-good “relationship gimmick” for two adults to participate in that removes parenthood out of marriage – what you are wanting is only imitation marriage to make homosexuals legitimise their sodomy. Nothing that you are proposing doesn’t enhance marriage and it certainly isn’t “marriage equality” because it leaves out all other “options” (such as “polygamy, etc). There is no bile in what I am saying, but rather I am stating the bleeding obvious that has been known by civilizations since time began and yet somehow you think they ALL got it wrong and us “smart, educated, progressive” people know better…..hmmm…..the whole gay movement is a social engineering experiment in reducing population (it’s a population control stunt) driven by hedonistic humanism/atheism – nothing more.
You are truly an idiot mate! Go to America and marry Donald Trump, you are both stupid!
Name calling is hardly a way to convince people your way because you are neither refuting my point (therefore conceding my point to be true) or making any new point(s) to add to the debate – this is the major flaw in the same sex marriage push. Name calling is a cop out.
There is no hatred, bigotry or discrimination to uphold the millennia-old understanding that marriage is solely between a man and a woman. At worst, it is just a difference of opinion, and at best, it is upholding history for a reason – opposite sex marriages are the only way that civilizations can thrive and be prosperous (you can have children to start with and then to structure ethics, honesty and decency). The family unit is vital to how society functions and when it is distorted or changed, so does society. Already, heterosexual children are told not to use the terms “boy, girl, him, her, mummy, daddy, etc” because these terms are gender specific and oppose the same-sex/transgender identification – so heterosexual people (from a very young age onwards) are impacted in thousands of ways by the same sex marriage re-definition. Plus all heterosexual marriages change from being recognised as “married to a member of the opposite sex for life” to “someone I am temporarily having sex with” which, for me, would be insulting if I was in anyway assumed to be married just for sex or to another man. So every time I say the words “I’m married”, my marriage is being damaged by the re-definition of marriage. My feelings are as valid as any homosexual’s feeling and should be equally considered seriously in the whole same sex marriage debate. Failure to do so shows that the same sex marriage issue is not about love and equality, but solely a political stunt to legalize rampant hedonism.
Neil’s here spreading his bile. Good luck with the hate preaching it’ll only burn you up.
He rails on about a “special activity” for a different group, he’s quite right of course, marriage to the adult partner of your choice should be available to everyone not just those “special” opposite sex attracted people.
Neil you’re more than welcome to come along to an arse play workshop, if you’re respectful of the other group members.
Telstra new motto should be “it’s how we get in bed with the child molesting Catholic Church!”
Telstra is a whopping 17% owned by government. It should come as no shock that Telstra has been forced to follow LNP policy of a plebiscite. Malcolm Turnbull directly controls a fairly big chunk of the board, the government is also a major customer. Telstra could only change such a position from supporting equality to supporting government policy, with the direct invention by the a Prime Minister no less. Tesltra, like all public companies, follows the direction of the board. By all means change suppliers, but also put Turnbull and his ilk last on the ballot sheet. Tunbull is under great pressure not to have a plebiscite and you can only imagine his rage when Telstra has joined the growing number of companies, who ask that we have equal civil rights.
Telstra it’s how we disconnect!
What we are seeing is the “cult” of LGBTIQ2A+ where once you are in, you can never leave – Telstra has been caught out and many other businesses/individuals/politicians are going to get caught out too – it’s the “Hotel California” scenario….”You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave!”.If you back-track from their support….wow!….are you in for it. There’s no love or tolerance then, just plain hateful, malicious blackmail and bullying. We can now start to see the ugly underbelly of the same sex lobby movement! Persecution of all descriptions will follow over the years.
Btw, the more you create a “special” activity to help a “different group” of people, the more different they become because they have to have “special” help – it is circular reasoning and works against itself. It creates “perpetual victim-hood”. For example, when I was a child, I remember a group of children leaving out another child from their group (as children do from time-to-time) and so an adult stepped in to help out by telling/suggesting that the group include the other child. This just made the other child look more different from the rest because an adult had to step in to help him (when no adults had to step in for any of the other children), and so the child felt more left out and the the child himself got upset with the adult for exacerbating his situation. The adult thought they were doing something helpful, but just made the problem worse for the child. If the adult had just made a generalisation to ALL the children that they need to be inclusive without identifying any one child or drawing attention to any specific issue, then the group of children would apply the teaching to their circumstances by including the other child…..and the other child wouldn’t feel different from the rest (thereby maintaining his self-respect and normality). So in the case of the “Safe Schools” program, the more that the LGBTIQAPX people get “special” attention, the more different they look. In stead of being a genuine anti-bullying program that teaches anti-bullying across ALL issues, it focuses on one group thereby exacerbating their plight. Talk about a massive back-fire….and it’s not just with “safe Schools”, they look more different and unnatural the more that the same sex lobby group tries to “help” them. There are also gay-only groups that teach people how to have gay relationships, gay sex, etc….so much for homosexuality being “normal/natural” if you have to be taught it….and it is discrimination to make the group a gay-only group (oh….that’s right…..discrimination and abuse only works one way, the heterosexuals have to cop it).