Alex Greenwich MP
ABBI 10-year Anniversary Gala Dinner
10 November 2023
Can I start by acknowledging the traditional owners of our land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to elder’s past, present and emerging. Can I also acknowledge the many distinguished LGBTQ community leaders and the distinguished faith leaders that join us here today.
Your combined presence demonstrates the power of Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International (ABBI), and the courage and tenacity of our friend Anthony Venn-Brown OAM. And it is a real honor and privilege for me to be here today to celebrate the powerful work that has been done for the past decade, but we know well over a decade. I was lucky enough to first meet Anthony during the marriage equality campaign. And we’re so grateful for Anthony’s leadership in bridging the gap between the LGBTI community and faith communities. Providing a space for us to provide a platform for faith leaders who wanted to back the reform, to help us communicate between the faith community and the LGBTI community, to identify commonalities, and work together to advocate for reform.
And I know as someone who was intimately involved in that campaign for many years, that we would have not succeeded in achieving marriage equality in 2017, had it not been for the early work that Anthony did to provide a platform for faith leaders to support and celebrate our community.
And for well over a decade, in my day job as the member for Sydney, I have also been working with Anthony and Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International to ban LGBTQ conversion practices.
And I acknowledge that today, here in this room, there are people with the lived experience of these harmful practices. There are people in this room that Anthony has helped to share their story, to come to peace with their story, and to advocate for reform based on their story. And that’s the power of the work that ABBI and Anthony continues to do.
We do know however, that, unfortunately for too long. In New South Wales, this has been in the political too hard basket. However, this year in the 2023 election, a prohibition of conversion practices became a defining issue in our state election. And following consultation with Anthony and survivors of conversion practices, in consulting with those who have gone through the Victorian legislative process, the amazing people at Equality Australia, (I know that Ghassan Kassisieh is here today}, at the start of the election period, this year, I was able to announce and release my bill to prohibit conversion practices in New South Wales.
Every year is going to be a close election, and I made it clear that in the case of a hung parliament, support for reform to prohibit conversion practices would be a critical factor in my decision towards supporting anyone forming government. Fortunately, the New South Wales Parliament ended up being very well hung, and the day I announced my legislation, the following day, the now Minns Labor government, and the Labor Party, announced that they will progress reform as well, and started the process. The first time a major party in New South Wales had backed the reform. That was huge.
A week later, the coalition government under the leadership of Dominic Perrottet announced they would also support a prohibition on conversion practices. So finally, after it wasn’t just a decade, it was decades of tireless work and sharing the harrowing stories, the cause that Anthony had been the champion of, was on the New South Wales political agenda, and with the support of all major parties.
Anthony, as he always does, so eloquently spoke at media conferences, explained the reform, explained why it was important, and helped share the stories of those who had some of the most traumatic experiences with conversion practices. And people who may still ask, Why is this so important, why is achieving reform in this space so important for New South Wales? Well, as many of you know, in this room, there is a long history of LGBTQI+ people being told that we are broken and that we need to be fixed. As we know, we are not broken; we are loved, and the law needs to reflect that.
As Anthony, ABBI and so many others have advocated, it is emotionally destructive to be told that you are bad, sinful, and to blame for who you are and that you need to change something intrinsic about yourself. My proposed bill, our proposed bill, reflects the best practice and the needs of victim survivors, which focuses on a mediation and conciliation process, with criminal penalties when serious harm occurs. My bill will help to inform government legislation, which is said to be introduced by the Attorney General later this year. I had the privilege of bringing Anthony along with other advocates to meet with the Attorney General Michael Daly earlier in the year, to share why this reform is so important, to explain how this reform needs to work, to explain that this is not something we have just started asking for, but this has been a long time coming. And while there is no doubt that there will be more work to do in the political process, particularly with some of the people who work in my workplace, in the upper house, I am extremely confident that the law will pass, and it will be Anthony’s enduring leadership that will be a key reason why New South Wales finally passes a ban on LGBT conversion “therapy”.
In closing, can I just thank everyone here this evening, thank all the people who have worked with ABBI and ABBI, the board members, Anthony’s family who are here at that table over there. A big shout out. And sister, amazing sister and other friends that are here, and thank them for their support, everyone here for your support of Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International.
Now more than ever, we need to come together on what unites us, not fight over what divides us. We need to finally end the furphy of God versus gay, and realise that love and respect for each other, and those we have differences with, is the only way to show this state, this country, this world as a better place for all.
I am so grateful for the work of Ambassadors and Bridge Builders International. I’m so grateful to have known and learned from Anthony Venn-Brown and it’s such a special night to be here to celebrate 10 years and changing lives and 10 years of saving lives.
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