Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Ministers statements: Wear It Purple Day

Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Equality) (12:17): Last Friday I, along with so many other people in this chamber, across the Parliament and indeed around Australia and the world, celebrated Wear It Purple Day. This is an initiative which is intended to provide a measure of visible support, encouragement, care, love and respect to LGBTIQ+ young people, who are, as we all know, as is irrefutably the case, at greater vulnerability to self-harm, to challenges to mental health and wellbeing and to suicide.

I celebrated Wear It Purple Day in Trafalgar on Friday with the incredible team at the Gippsland Pride Initiative and helped to open Gippsland’s very first Pride hub, which is an amazing community space being developed and now served by UnitingCare, the West Gippsland health service and Thorne Harbour Health, along with support from the state government. This is a welcoming, inclusive and really warm space. Providing that care is so important. Within 30 minutes of opening they in fact had a community member come in, asking for resources and for support.

Every Wear It Purple Day is an opportunity for us to recommit to being supportive, to being visible and to making sure that we are calling out any challenge to the safety, the dignity or the wellbeing of LGBTIQ+ young people. And in rural and regional Victoria we know that this carries a special significance.

As Minister for Water it was also a joy to celebrate the exceptionally progressive sector which does encourage and welcome LGBTIQ+ people within our customer base, within the workforce and within the community. I was delighted to catch up with Jo Lim, the CEO of VicWater; with the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action Pride network members; and with Melbourne Water’s Refract committee. In Shepparton I got to spend time with Goulburn–Murray Water, Goulburn Valley Water and Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority to hear all about the work that they are doing within their diverse and exceptionally welcoming members of the workforce who identify as LGBTIQ+.