Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (09:57:36) — Last weekend I had the honour of attending two events which celebrated excellence. On Friday night I was at the United Nations Association of Australia Media Awards for 2017. Each year these awards are presented to Australian journalists who have excelled in their promotion of human rights and exposure of breaches. These awards and the journalists and programs that received them are the antidotes to the fake news that has become ever so present in today’s media. They bring transparency and sunlight to human rights and their breaches.
The ABC won the majority of the UN awards this year, and the simple but powerful program You Can’t Ask That took home three gongs for its amazing work in breaking down barriers and encouraging the conversations we should be having around age, disability and many other issues.
The following evening I attended the annual GLOBE Community Awards. Each year the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of Business Enterprise celebrates excellence within their communities, and never was such an event more important than in 2017. It astounds me sometimes how resilient, determined, supportive and innovative Victoria’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and allied communities are in the face of things like a federally sanctioned national questionnaire regarding the validity and legitimacy of their love.
The winner of the LGBTI person of the year was Micah Scott, the CEO of Minus18, and the volunteer of the year was the very deserving Dean Arcuri. Congratulations to them both.
