Kathmandu (Pahichan) December 9 – The fight for equality in Australia has a new name, a new purpose and a new leader at the helm. On the first anniversary of Australia achieving marriage equality, The Equality Campaign – the organisation which fought so hard to achieve that goal – is rebranding as Equality Australia.

Anna Brown, a well-known member of the LGBTI community, director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre and co-chair of the Equality Campaign, is the incoming CEO of the legal advocacy organisation with the mission to erase discrimination from our state and federal laws.

Her first task is to end the exemptions to anti-discrimination law that allow faith-based organisations to discriminate against LGBTI people at schools and other workplaces.

“Students and all Australians have every right to be deeply frustrated and heartbroken that our Parliament has failed to deliver on what should be a straightforward reform,” Brown said on Wednesday, after the Morrison Government delayed a debate on a Labor party bill to end discrimination in schools and proposed its own bill that she says will further entrench discrimination.

“Morrison has broken his commitment to introduce and pass legislation to protect students in school as soon as practicable. That commitment was made in October, the changes are very simple and now in the final days of Parliament we are mired in a ridiculous debate instead of giving families certainty before the new school year.”

At Equality Australia, Brown will also focus on getting conversion therapy banned federally, ending unnecessary surgery on intersex children and fighting any attempt by the government to use the release of the Ruddock Religious Freedom Review to erode LGBTI rights.

“We will be making sure there’s no price paid for equality,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald.

“The genesis of that inquiry was this flawed idea that equality for LGBTI people somehow poses a threat to religious freedom. We reject this utterly.”

“These are really unhelpful, damaging debates that drag our country back into the time where people could be turned away from a shop because of their race or because of who they are.”

Equality Australia has $500,000 of left over donations from the YES campaign to use and will continue to fundraise in order to build a more equal Australia.

Source : accidentallyalex