Council backs Parramatta Pride Picnic following Lord Mayor’s stoush with gay community

SUNDAY’S Parramatta Pride Picnic is set to be the highest-profile yet after the local council, whose current mayor has had a stormy relationship with the LGBTI community, contributed financially to the event for the first time.

The annual event, which is supported by a number of LGBTI community organisations from western Sydney under the guise of the Parramatta Queer Forum, will include community stalls, entertainment, dog shows, martial arts and sports demonstrations and even a tug-of-war.

Coordinator of the Partnerships Engagement Unit at ACON, Gavin Prendergast, said the event was vital as there were no full-time venues serving the LGBTI community in the area.

“Western Sydney is a massive area but many LGBTI people are not connected into a gay network,” he said.

“The Pride Picnic gives people an opportunity to be out in the open in a safe space and an opportunity to start a connection.

“It’s going to be like a mini Fair Day but with a water view.”

Parramatta Council has contributed $1000 towards the event as well as facilitating a move to the more centrally-located Riverside Foreshore Reserve.

Prendergast praised council for their support and enabling the event to leave its previous location in Parramatta Park.

“We were kind of hidden away in a corner and felt a bit isolated but now we’re right in the CBD just off the main drag of Church St so curious locals will see all the colourful people, right in the thick of it and that’s a pretty big leap considering what happened in 2013,” he said.

At Parramatta’s 2013’s Rediscover the River Festival, LGBTI youth counselling service Twenty10 was allegedly asked by an advisor to Parramatta Lord Mayor, John Chedid, to take down a banner that was deemed to contain offensive language.

The banner, which advertised Twenty10’s presence and purpose, read: “Support services for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, same-sex attracted and gender diverse young people, their families and communities.”

Because of the incident, Twenty10 made the decision to abandon their presence at he festival.

More than 12,000 people signed a petition aimed at the the Lord Mayor, who subsequently apologised to Twenty10 in a private letter.

Prendergast said the grant — which in previous years had been denied — showed the relationship with council had now come “almost come full circle,” and they were “a little more accepting that people in their locality could be gay”.

A spokesperson for Parramatta Council confirmed they had “received applications in the past from the Queer Forum for the Pride Picnic event in our annual grants program which were unsuccessful in a competitive assessment process.”

However, the current application demonstrated “strong partnerships between community organisations” in combating LGBTI exclusion and marginalisation.

The spokesperson said council had also supported the local LGBTI community by marking IDAHOT Day “with a stall in Church St Mall for at least the past three years with the participation of Parramatta Police, PFLAG, ACON and other member groups of the Parramatta Queer Forum”.

Council would not confirm if the Lord Mayor would be paying the Picnic a visit.

The Parramatta Pride Picnic will be held from 10am–4pm on Sunday, September 14 at Parramatta Riverbank Foreshore Reserve. Full details: click here