Uniting Australians to support the LGBTIQ+ community
Equality Australia
Equality Australia

TOTAL GRANTED
$77,000

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.
Marriage equality
ISSUE
In August 2017, the Federal Government announced the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey β 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
βIt 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.β β 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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