Toes into the water, and another small step forward
Mar 30th, 2008 by Rebecca
I’ve been around a few activist campaigns since I moved here few years ago, but I’ve been a bit too mired in my own mess to be able to take a really active role most of the time. I did pour myself into the anti-voluntary student unionism campaign in 2005, before its heartbreaking eleventh-hour failure after a year of campaigning, but apart from that, it’s essentially been limited to helping out with campaign tactics. So it’s been a bit of a change over the last couple of months as I’ve started to get more actively involved with the civil unions campaign. That’s taken on a whole new level over the last week, as I’ve been starting to take over the role of media spokesperson from Ryan.
It’s strange getting used to having to do press interviews and such: I did Canberra FM, Prime News (both of which were pretty scary) and a great interview with queer community radio in Melbourne; another woman did the Times and some other outlets. This culminated in speaking on behalf of the campaign at today’s rally - and though I was pretty terrified, it seemed to go down pretty well. I’m generally a pretty fiery speaker, so it was good to have the chance to see that our message got out there clearly.
I’m pretty pleased with the outcome of the rally. We got radio and television coverage in advance, and WIN News and quite a few journalists were there for the actual day. We had the opportunity to make very clear to the ACT government that we want them to plow ahead with the Civil Partnerships Bill, regardless of federal government threats of an override, and to launch our “back off, McClelland” petition to take to the Senate in May . Openly gay Education Minister Andrew Barr, speaking on behalf of the government, reaffirmed the government’s commitment to standing by the bill against federal pressure, although somewhat concerningly, he didn’t specifically mention ceremonies.
Greens MLA Deb Foskey lived up to her reputation for being a not-exactly-superb public speaker, but did make one good point - it’s all well and good for the ACT government to keep reaffirming support for the bill, but when is it actually going to be taken to the Assembly floor? Based on Barr’s comments today, it won’t be before May - and if that’s true, we’re starting to run out of time before the territory election in October. I find this a bit odd, considering that federal negotiations are obviously permanently deadlocked and they’re bound to be heavily targeted by the Greens (who pose the biggest threat to the government’s majority) in the election campaign if it isn’t passed by then. We”ve generally tried to maintain a good relationship with the territory government, with today being no exception, but our next step might have to be to ramp up the pressure on them to actually take the jump and pass the damned bill.
It seems I’ll have a bit more time to be involved in this next stage in the campaign, too. I’ve been a bit limited in what I’ve been able to do so far as I’ve been working a huge amount of hours and trying to study full-time. However, on Wednesday, I lost my job for taking one day off to finish an assignment that I simply hadn’t had time to tackle. I’d had a perfect record there, was damned good at my job, and was doing much of the day-to-day running of the business. On the Thursday, my boss suggested that my workload was growing to the point where he was considering hiring an assistant for me. I asked for and was (albeit reluctantly) granted Tuesday off - before being told on Wednesday morning that they “weren’t as busy now” and that they’d “call me when the business picked up again”.
I’m a bit pissed off, as I really liked the actual job. However, it isn’t a huge loss, as my boss was an asshole whose behaviour frequently bordered on sexual harassment, and gives me the opportunity to try and find a job with hours that are a little more suitable for a full-time study load. Moreover, it gives me the chance to dedicate some real time to this campaign in the months to come, because it’s got a long way to go yet.