Doug PollardLabors Pink Package
Activist Rob Mitchell explains why he's running an ad campaign that's highly critical of the Labor Party's pitch for the gay vote
DOUG: We’re talking all things election, in a little while we’ll be talking to America about their election – with Harley Dennett, from Washington. But right now we’re going to be speaking with Rob Mitchell. We’ve done something slightly unusual – m’mm, everybody expects the activists in our community to be fawning all over the Labor Party at the moment because of the amount of money they’ve put out. But Rob’s not and he’s not happy – why aren’t you happy, Rob?
ROB: Good morning, Doug – well, I guess there are a number of reasons why I’m not happy. But really, I think the two things that tipped me over the edge were firstly, the announcement from Lisa Neville’s office on Melbourne Cup Day saying that they had allocated a new grant of AU$3.6m for GLBTI mental health when of course, that’s not new. That was announced back in May of this year so they’ve put that through the car wash and given it a bit of a polish, saying this is all brand new money which is ridiculous. It’s not. The second thing - - -
DOUG: I thought it was.
ROB: - - - no. It’s not new. It was announced, back in May and – m’mm, it’s been a concern of mine for some time that we hadn’t heard anything about it. I started making enquiries a few weeks ago and I hit a bit of a brick wall, as we’ll talk about in a minute I discovered why – the second thing is that the “Respect Agenda” that is being run out of Justin Madden’s office, a number of weeks ago I was invited to lunch with Justin Madden and Tony [indistinct] they were making all the right noises about what they were going to do with GLBTI in the Respect Agenda. Then, low-and-behold this video appeared on the A.F.L. website which was produced with Justin Madden in it and there was absolutely no “gay” in it, whatsoever. I thought this is all just a complete waste of time.
DOUG: I spoke to Justin Madden’s office yesterday. Because I was trying to get Justin Madden to come and talk with us about this and if I can briefly summarise what the office said, they said that (a) they’d had a round table on the subject with lots of GLBTI community representatives and they were happy with it; (b) that the video had the word “diversity” in it and that covered us and most people were happy with that and (c) the Respect Agenda is only a year old and will be developing over time.
ROB: If they say they’ve consulted with people in the GLBTI community then that’s crap. It’s also crap for them to say they’ve consulted with the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Which would be an obvious stop for them to go to, I did also have the argument – the diversity argument, run past me and as I pointed out to the person who was running it past me who were very rigorous in their defence of it - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
ROB: I said if that’s the case if we’ve got the word “diversity” that should cover everything, why do they mention “indigenous”. Why do they mention “women”? One in, all in. The diversity argument’s fine – look, I mean – it’s really important here - - -
DOUG: So what you’re saying is that they’ve specifically picked out certain groups – like, women, indigenous and mentioned them – right, but following on from that; they have not mentioned anything else specifically, including us. Therefore, they are in fact excluding us by wrapping us in that portmanteau term.
ROB: Exactly. What they’ve done is had lunch in Prahran, they’ve got a few of us down in Prahran – you know, put some catering on and they say – well, that’s discharged our obligation and we’ve used the word “diversity”. It’s complete crap – I mean, look – we’ve got to take a step back, here and realise what’s going on – and what’s going on is that the Brumby government is blowing smoke - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
ROB: - - - you know? It’s done a set of rings and its blowing smoke. When I was in my 20s I had a Daihatsu “Hijet” van that I had for years - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
ROB: - - - and it did a few hundred-thousand-k’s and the last few months, you know, it was blowing smoke. Then the other thing that was happening was the clutch was going so you’d put your foot down and not only would smoke come out the back of it but the clutch wouldn’t take – and one day, this is honest – what happened was, I was in Canterbury Road coming up to Fitzroy Street and stopped at the lights. A mate of mine – we’re in the front of the van – and the lights went to green, I put my foot down on the accelerator and the engine started revving – vrmm-vrmm(sic) – tons of blue and black smoke coming out the back of it and I was only inching forward - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
ROB: I’d put the accelerator on and: “vrmm-vrmm” and there was - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
ROB: - - - and that’s the Brumby government, it’s stuck at the intersection and now it wants us to give it a push.
DOUG: One of the other things I think you also raise is a lot of the money they’re promising is not actually going to hit-the-road so to speak, it’s not going in to programmes that are going to do some good?
ROB: Absolutely – I mean, apart from the AU$50,000 a year which they’ve allocated to “Switchboard” which is good. Switchboard is a volunteer organisation, it’s great that they’ve got some money there which we’ve been trying to get them money for some time. That is good and that hits the ground but all the other stuff is not going to hit the ground at all – I mean, they’re going to say they’re going to give us money for consulting and so on and a hundred thousand a year sounds a big amount of money but it’s actually not a big amount of money. Because by the time you pay for one person and the on-costs on top of that - - -
DOUG: Well, let’s go through what they’ve got because I’ve got the press release in front of me – m’mm, we’ve got AU$400,000 over 4-years to support and recognise GLBTI peak body to represent-the-interests-of or act-on-behalf-of the GLBTI community. So that means presumably, pumping money into something like – oh, I don’t know – it’s been suggested it might be the ALSO Foundation - - -
ROB: Sure.
DOUG: - - - for example.
ROB: Yeah.
DOUG: Which has been in financial strife since the G.F.C. Surely, that’s a kind of good idea that one of our community’s body’s should have this government support?
ROB: It’d be a good idea if they gave them the money and they listened to what we had to say but the point is, we’ve been telling them what’s required for example, around mental health with the GLBTI Health MAC and – you know, they put all the right people on there. There’re people like Professor Anne Mitchell and Dr. Lynn Hill that do the research and the research is fantastic – and everybody says: ah, the research is fantastic. They put it out and they-look-at-it-and-look-at-i t-and-look-at-it – and all we get is this endless series of committees, more consultation and – you know, more pilot projects. The reality is they do the absolute bare minimum to try and shut us up and then they say: you might not be happy with us but the other side, they’re even worse and it’s really, really bad. I’m sorry, that’s not a compelling electoral proposition.
DOUG: [laughs] Yeah – well, talking about committees – one of their other promises is to establish a whole-of-government advisory committee on GLBTI issues. Which again, another ‘talking shop’ I guess you’d say?
ROB: Absolutely and we know, if you talk about mental health for example, we know what is required in rural Victoria is we need to make a dent in youth suicide. We’re now staring down the barrel at youth suicide being a bigger killer than the road toll and we know we’re vastly over-represented, from the research. GLBTI youth are vastly over-represented in the people who are experiencing suicidal thought and depression. In rural Victoria if we had somewhere north of AU$2m a year recurrent to fund people on the ground – you know, in all the rural areas then that will start to make a dent. With Lisa Neville’s announcement half of the money’s gone to Geelong which remind me who the member for Geelong – Bellarine – is - - -
DOUG: Who is the member for Geelong? Lisa - - -
ROB: Lisa Neville and the other half has gone to Shepparton.
DOUG: M’mm.
ROB: Now, there are 680,000 young people aged 15 to 24 in this state, approximately 27,000 live in the greater-Geelong area and approximately 7,000 - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
ROB: - - - live in the Shepparton area so that’s six per cent. What are we doing for the other 94 per cent of the population? It’s ridiculous, it is and when I say it’s beyond cynicism it’s appalling and we should not tolerate it.
DOUG: So it’s just pork barrelling?
ROB: Well there’s no pork so it’s not even pork barrelling – I mean, it’s - - -
DOUG: Pork crackling?
ROB: - - - there’s this humorous aspect to it but there’s nothing humorous about kids pulling-the-pin on themselves - - -
DOUG: Sure.
ROB: - - - and it’s not going to get better until we do something about it.
DOUG: But it’s better than nothing, surely?
ROB: Well is it really? I mean, we’re essentially selling our soul here for 600,000 a year and that’s not on. That’s why I’ve done the ads and there’s a series of ads – m’mm, you asked me why I did it. Because this is all fixable, we know from the research that this is all fixable and we can do something about it.
DOUG: We’ve loads more things we could talk about, people will doubtless be hearing your advertisement, putting your point-of-view on Joy at regular intervals and I don’t want to ask you who we should vote for instead of John Brumby – but what do you hope the impact of the ads is?
ROB: I would never tell people how to vote. What I would say to people is what we’ve got to do from all the people who are putting themselves up as prospective leaders or want to represent us in parliament, we say to them it’s not a matter of being tokenistic or doing the bare minimum. Quite frankly, I think our communities have had a gut full of people doing the bare minimum to try and slip by. We need people to actually get out there and fund this stuff properly so that we get the right result.
DOUG: Thanks for joining us this morning, Rob.
ROB: Thanks, Doug.
DOUG: I’ll let you get back to your cows - - -
ROB: Thank you.
DOUG: - - - you’re obviously dressed for it - - -
[laughs]
DOUG: He’s in his farmer mode this morning I think I should tell the listeners – as distinct from his business-man mode. I never quite know which one we’re going to get when he comes in but it’s definitely farmer mode this morning. So, thanks for taking time out to come down from the farm and speak with us.
ROB: Thanks, Doug.
DOUG: That was Rob Mitchell, there.
