Equality Australia

Equality Australia

Equality Australia

Uniting Australians to support the LGBTIQ+ community

TOTAL GRANTED

$77,000

Tackling Inequality

Impact AreaTackling Inequality

Year First Supported 2017

Uniting Australians to support the LGBTIQ+ community

Equality Australia (EA) exists to improve the wellbeing and circumstances of LGBTIQ+ people in Australia and their families. More specifically, EA works to reduce the stigma and discrimination LGBTIQ+ people face, and to advance and promote equality and inclusion.

WATCH: UPDATE FROM ANNA BROWN, CEO, EQUALITY AUSTRALIA

Read the full interview from March 2022 here

Marriage equality

ISSUE

In August 2017, the Federal Government announced the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey – a national survey designed to gauge support for legalising same-sex marriage in Australia.

RESPONSE

The Equality Campaign quickly emerged as a broad coalition of Australians working to secure a Yes vote. The Human Rights Law Centre, where Equality Australia’s Founding CEO Anna Brown was working at the time, was central in ensuring the passage of legislation to deliver marriage equality. Equality Australia was born out of this work.

Religious Discrimination Bill

ISSUE

The proposed Religious Discrimination Bill was supposed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religious belief or activity (including having no religious belief or refusing to engage in religious activity) in certain areas of public life, such as employment, education and the provision of goods and services.

But the Bill that was drafted threatened to undermine inclusive workplaces, schools and access to services like healthcare without judgement. Laws which should protect religious people from discrimination would have been used to hand a licence to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ people, women, people with disability, and others.

RESPONSE

In 2019, Equality Australia began working in close partnership with businesses, community organisations, and individual advocates to make sure that laws in the name of religion protect people of faith without winding back protections from discrimination for LGBTIQ+ people,  women, and people with disability.

Progress update

UPDATED MARCH 2022
  • Marriage equality achieved
  • Religious Discrimination Bill shelved indefinitely

What the Impact Fund’s support means

β€œIt is really wonderful to have funders like the Impact Fund community who understand that to protect equality we need the freedom to respond swiftly to the political landscape.” – Anna Brown, CEO, Equality Australia

Read case study in Making Change Together: Five years of the Impact Fund

Grants

  • 2017 Agile Grant: $25,000 for YES campaign
  • 2018 Agile Grant: $15,000 for All Schools, Same Rules campaign
  • 2021 Agile Grant: $37,000 for Freedom for Discrimination campaign (Religious Discrimination Bill)

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Contact Us
Level 6, 126 Wellington Parade, East Melbourne VIC 3002

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live, learn and work. We pay our respects to Elders past and present.

Australian Communities Foundation is a proudly inclusive organisation and an ally of LGBTQIA+ communities and the movement toward equality.