Matters of Interest

Feast Festival

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:24): I rise today to speak on the Feast Festival and pay tribute to that wonderful event that kicked off on Saturday night. I attended the pride march, as did my parliamentary colleague, the Hon. Mark Parnell, and the newly-elected Adelaide City Councillor, Robert Simms. I am sure many other members of parliament have, in the past, attended that event, if they were not amongst the record crowd of 2,500 plus on Saturday night celebrating the beginning of Feast Festival.

That festival and the Pride March commemorates quite historical marches for the gay community, marches that were not necessarily as celebratory as we saw on Saturday night. Certainly, we have a lot to celebrate, although there is a lot to be done when it comes to working towards equality on the grounds of gender and sexuality, not just in this country but, of course, across the world.

I pay particular tribute to Feast. It is an Adelaide icon. It is Adelaide's queer arts festival. It happens every year. It has been happening since 1997 when it was begun by a group of arts and community cultural workers: Margie Fisher, Damien Carey, Helen Bock and Luke Cutler. It has gone on to become the largest LGBTI-curated cultural festival in our state and I would imagine one of the larger ones in the world.

It has a lot to celebrate and there is a lot to go out and see, and I certainly encourage members to go and see one of the many shows or attend any of the many events, but it has a very powerful reason for its existence; that is, the history of discrimination against people on the grounds of either their sexuality or indeed their gender, particularly their gender identity.

South Australia, I am very proud to say, was visionary. Forty years ago next year, we were the first state to decriminalise homosexual acts. I think that was a welcome move, and we know the very proud visionary leadership of Donald Dunstan did have much to do—

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink: And Murray Hill.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: Of course, I was getting to Murray Hill as well. It was indeed one of those wonderful concurrences where many members of different political parties worked for a very long time and finally that particular bill to decriminalise homosexuality under the Dunstan government was passed. Of course, it was not passed on the first attempt and it took many attempts to get there.

It also took the deaths of men like Dr Duncan, who, as I have said in this place before and as all members would be aware, was thrown into the Torrens River and murdered. We know that those people who murdered him were never called to account and were never made culpable for that murder, but we do know that he died at their hands. We also know and pay tribute to the fact that that death exposed what was truly going on in our society and led to those very welcome legislative changes.

There is a lot more to be done when it comes to equality. Marriage equality is just one issue that the Greens have supported: every member of parliament, every vote, every time. It is our party policy. I will be bringing back a bill next year in the new session to recognise marriages in other jurisdictions. New South Wales has done it, Tasmania has done it and Queensland has done it; South Australia can do it next year. That can be on the agenda for next year.

Another thing that can be on the agenda for next year is to apologise for those convictions for sodomy. This parliament, late last year, as I mentioned in question time, did indeed move to expunge those convictions, and that is a very welcome move. Next year, to mark that 40^th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, there is a homosexual histories conference taking place in South Australia. So, that will be a very appropriate event at which to mark and apologise for those convictions and the deep hurt and discrimination it has caused those men over many decades, in fact for large parts of their adult life, that covered their employment, their ability to get the jobs that they really wanted and indeed their standing in the community by having those convictions on their record.

I also note that 13 councils across South Australia, for these two weeks of the Feast Festival, are flying the rainbow flag. Joining the Adelaide City Council, the City of Charles Stuart, the City of Marion, the City of Playford, the City of Port Adelaide Enfield, the City of Port Augusta, the City of Port Lincoln, the City of Prospect, the City of Salisbury, the City of Unley, the City of West Torrens, the District Council of Mount Barker, is the Town of Gawler, the Hon. John Dawkins will be pleased to know, and I would say that—

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Franks's time is up.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: —this place should also fly the rainbow flag to mark next year's 40^th anniversary of that decriminalisation.

Time expired.