Online petitions made great strides for Aussie LGBTI people in 2016
Image: Sally Rugg in front of the billboard calling on Malcolm Turnbull to approve a free vote on marriage equality. Photo: Supplied
IN 2016 people voted with their feet – or rather with a click of their mouse – as thousands of people got behind online petitions championing LGBTI causes.
Australians took to campaign sites Change.org and GetUp! to start petitions on a range of issues important to the LGBTI community including promoting the Safe Schools program, allowing same-sex students to attend formal together, changing adoption laws and championing marriage equality.
As one of the biggest online campaigning platforms in the world, Change.org has had a massive 2016 with great success for some of its long-term campaigns.
At a political level, Change.org celebrated the changes to South Australian birth certificate laws after the mums of Tadhg won the right to both be named on his birth certificate. Months later adoptions by same-sex couples were given the green light after a petition racked up more than 27,000 signatures.
In Queensland and South Australia, the state governments committed to abolishing the “terribly homophobic law” known as the gay panic defence after strong lobbying from Catholic priest Father Paul Kelly and one of the biggest petitions ever in Change.org’s history.
Bundoora Secondary School College in Victoria announced it will now accept same-sex couples to their debutante ball after the successful petition, and a student LGBTI coalition was set up at Victoria’s prestigious Wesley College after it refused to sign up to the Safe Schools program.
Change.org’s communication director Gary Nunn said LGBTI people across Australia are using the tool to successful campaign for both big and small victories for the community.
“From legal equality for gay parents to same-sex partners being able to attend the school formal, 2016 has seen people power victories Australia-wide, because online technology has empowered everyday people to amass support to persuade and win,” he said.
The team at GetUp! also had a massive year – not only campaigning for LGBTI issues, but strongly fighting for marriage equality and against the proposed plebiscite on the issue.
GetUp! started the year by teaming up with Australian Marriage Equality to start a petition calling on the government to abandon the plebiscite and allow a parliamentary vote. This petition was the largest collection of names of Australians against the plebiscite, and was delivered in parliament the day before the enabling legislation was due in the House of Representatives.
As soon as the legislation for the government’s proposed plebiscite was made public, GetUp! members leapt into action to make sure the Senate would block the bill. With the Senate crossbench already mostly committed to blocking the legislation, GetUp! members made more than 2,000 phone-calls and emails to their Labor representatives within the first 48 hours of the bill appearing, urging them to vote against the bill.
Recently, GetUp decided to send a public message to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and crowdfunded a massive marriage equality billboard in the PM’s electorate of Wentworth.
More than 850! GetUp members chipped in to pay for the huge billboard in Turnbull’s electorate calling on him to cut the ties with the far-right of his party and pass marriage equality in 2017.
Standing 6m x 6m at one of the busiest intersections in Sydney, the billboard is a public reminder that GetUp! members will continue to hold the Prime Minister to account until he delivers marriage equality.
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