Equality Tasmania and Working It Out have welcomed the Liberal Party’s announcement of $500,000 for LGBTIQA+ services, community grants, policy development and an Action Plan.
The announcement was made yesterday as part of the Party’s Supporting Stronger Communities policy.
Working It Out acting CEO, Andrew Badcock, said,
“We welcome this announcement because the support, education, and advocacy services provided by Working It Out are chronically underfunded.”
“LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians face above average levels of mental ill-health, housing risk and workplace discrimination due to stigma and prejudice.”
“An increase to funding like this will provide greater certainty and capacity to meet demand, and help ensure more state-wide programs remain available for LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians and their families.”
Equality Tasmania spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said,
“It is welcome to see the Liberal Party recognise the need to remove discrimination and stigma against LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians.”
“The funding will help us make the case for improved services by highlighting the many problems ther LGBTIQA+ community continues to face due to discrimination.”
“Through the LGBTIQA+ community grants program, the funding will provide a diverse range of LGBTIQA+ community groups with some of the resources they need to provide support and change attitudes.”
Both the Labor and Green parties have already promised unprecedented funding boosts for LGBTIQA+ support services, policy-making, education and advocacy, including in areas like mental health.
Their LGBTIQA+ policy commitments, plus those of the Liberal Party, can be found here:
https://equalitytasmania.org.au/election2024/
Our statement on Labor’s policy can be found here.
Our statement on the Greens’ policy can be found here.
The Liberal’s funding announcement can be found here:
https://tas.liberal.org.au/supporting-stronger-communities
For a copy of this statement on the web, click here
For more information contact Andrew Badcock on 0400 884 149 or Rodney Croome on 0409 010 668.