Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Rainbow libraries toolkit

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:42): (1532) I also wish to raise an adjournment this evening for the Minister for Equality, Minister Ward. In light of the previous contribution – and I am still not convinced, Mrs Hermans, if you have actually ever read the rainbow libraries toolkit – you would have heard in the debate today what this very simple resource does and does not do. It is a practical optional resource for libraries. The action that I seek of the minister is to clarify her comments this morning. We had a contribution earlier this evening in that debate from Mr McCracken, who made some comments about what Minister Ward had allegedly said in a press conference. As I was standing next to the minister at the time, I am fairly sure that it was a bit of a misrepresentation. I just ask that the minister clarify exactly what she said in that press conference.

It does also lead me to once again just briefly note the bravery and the tenacity of the people, many of whom we saw here in the chamber tonight, in the face of these relentless attacks by some members opposite. It is, as one other member called out, the irrelevance of the modern Liberal Party. It is a great shame to see that on such fundamentally basic issues we do not enjoy that bipartisan support from those opposite. If you come to march in Pride, if you want to go on JOY FM and extol all your virtues, your votes speak for themselves. Very sadly, members who were in the chamber tonight voted in favour of a petition. Aside from the fact that the petition risks spreading hate towards the LGBTIQA+ community, it is also deeply misinformed, as I referred to in my contribution earlier. It is a great shame indeed to see the supposed modern Liberal Party doing that. I genuinely, genuinely hope that things will change. I do not want to be arguing with members opposite on such basic things. It does not help the LGBTIQA+ community for us to be arguing over such simple things, and I hope that those across the aisle who do see things from a bit more of a moderate perspective can prevail in their arguments because it was very disappointing to see what we saw tonight in the chamber.

The contributions from Minister Shing, from Ms Payne and from Mr Puglielli I will take a moment to acknowledge were excellent. Very simply, the action that I seek is for the minister to update and clarify her comments that she made to the press this morning.