Katrina Fox

Key members of the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) have agreed to work with ACON to ensure the GLBT community is included in its submission to the government’s social inclusion agenda.

ACOSS is the peak body representing the community sector in Australia.

Mark Orr, President of ACON, gave a presentation to delegates of the ACOSS conference last week detailing the negative impact of social exclusion on GLBT people and outlined strategies for ensuring our inclusion.

These include removing all forms of legal discrimination against GLBT people, funding and implementing programs to address discriminatory behaviour, the introduction of a national homophobia campaign and decreasing levels of homophobic bullying and youth homelessness with GLBT youth recognised as one of the priority groups.

David Scamell, Manager, Policy, Planning and Research at ACON’s said the organisation was “happy with the reception we got from members of the ACOSS leadership”.

“ACON was invited to speak to broad range of community sector from refugee groups to church groups,” Scamell told SX. “The feedback from them was pretty positive; there was no one who disagreed that GLBT people should not be recognised in the social inclusion agenda.”

During the conference feedback was given to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Social Inclusion Julia Gillard, who attended the conference. Scamell said ACON is seeking a meeting with Gillard to discuss the issues further, as well as continuing to work with ACOSS members.

“We’re working with them to make sure what they put forward to the government around social inclusion does continue to include the GLBT community. We are quite confident that they’ll be considering GLBT people as a community they should be including.”

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