Time to educate
Following opportunities advertised to the public, the GLRL applied for and was successful in receiving a Community Services grant worth $20,800 from the City of Sydney last week.
We will use this money to run a public campaign to educate our community about the recent and upcoming changes to legislation affecting same-sex couples. We are thrilled to have this opportunity and sincerely grateful to the City of Sydney for its continued support of not only the GLRL, but the LGBT community more widely.
This sum of money will allow us to provide campaign engagement with the Sydney metropolitan area through advertising and events. This means we will be able to provide vital information about these life-changing reforms to potentially thousands of lesbians and gay men.
As helpful as this grant will be, the GLRL will not be able to provide the necessary facts and advice to all the same-sex couples in NSW and Australia. The GLRL will start the education process, but we cannot do it alone.
After so many years of financial and legal discrimination, our community needs and deserves a broader education campaign to be undertaken by the Federal Government. Many couples will have to change the way they plan financially and live their lives and they need comprehensive and accessible information to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible.
The Federal Government only has plans to run a limited campaign to those currently receiving Centrelink payments. While this is a good first step, social security being one of the areas most likely to significantly change people’s lives, it is far from enough.
Equality will not be delivered through legislative reform alone -鈥� people need to know and understand their rights in order to assert them -鈥� and if this government is serious about same-sex equality then it needs to educate as well as legislate. Without education, the job will only be half done.
They have already costed what they will make from us.
They will not grandfather (protect) even elderly gay pensioners from the fear they are currently experiencing.
They give us until July 1 09, no extensions at all, but they backdate superannuation payments before they passed that legislation.
they have not finalised their own admin arrangement, nor their own internal education, but they can announce a hotline for us to ring.
Why didn’t we get a big education budget attached to this legislation, we need independent advocates for aged Centrelink recipients (and I do NOT mean centrelink social workers), we need education of all those working in the aged care industry, as a matter of urgency.
I could start posting messages from elderly gays who are experiencing extreme anxiety and seeking treatment for this – where are the reassuring messages and clear indicators from Centrelink to our community NOW.
Step up to the plate MPs, activists and all of us, it’s time to get this together and bitsy education is crumbs.
They shouldn’t be touching our money until they have given us full equality everywhere else. After they’ve given us the benefits of full equality, then make our payments standard with hets.
This legislation will destroy many duplicitious queens, who have been artfully ducking and weaving around the system. Just watch the furore at financial separations after two years for live-in “economic sharers”, “users” and, now, the boyfriend “misstresses” who will go for the lot! Mayhem!