We’ve failed the LGBTQIA+ class of 2023

Opinion piece from PIAC Director of Policy and Advocacy Alastair Lawrie

LAST week, the Australian Law Reform Commission was meant to hand the Attorney-General its final report into religious schools and the exceptions which allow them to discriminate against LGBTQIA+ students and teachers.

But late on the day before, the deadline was pushed back to December 31. This eight-month delay extinguishes the hope necessary amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act can be passed in time to benefit, however briefly, LGBTQIA+ young people now in Year 12.

The LGBTQIA+ graduating class of 2023 is a group we have comprehensively failed, from start to finish. They were born in 2005, the year after John Howard’s same-sex marriage ban. Their lives were political footballs from the beginning.

[Also posted on LinkedIn]