At their state convention earlier this month, the Queensland Liberal-National Party had a few interesting resolutions that were debated – including one that asked LNP Parliamentary representatives to “ensure there are no impediments to traditional Christian celebrations such as Christmas and Easter”.
That should be easy, since nobody with any power in Australia is trying to outlaw celebrating Christmas or Easter.
In addition to three resolutions about abortion, there was one that has alarmed some in the LGBTQ community regarding birth certificates.
The resolution reads:
“That this Convention of the LNP calls on an incoming LNP State Government to legislate that (a) Birth Certificates must contain a publicly available record of every persons actual biological sex at birth as either male or female; and (b) that no other sex or gender is to be recorded on a persons Birth Certificate or any other post birth Government record”
Basically, the resolution, put forward the Mount Ommaney branch, wants the party to adopt a policy that would see all birth certificates become publicly available, including what someone’s assigned gender at birth is.
The second element of the resolution wants to make it impossible for anyone to change their gender on their birth certificates – which is a step that is fairly crucial to trans people who are seeking to be recognised as their actual gender.
ugh I just learnt several state branches of the LNP in Australia are looking to remove transgender recognition by altering how birth certificates work and making them publicly available. screenshot is of resolutions passed for the Queensland branch. pic.twitter.com/TftNACDPRc
— Ash shields goth ?s & ?s (@SecretTrashlyn) July 17, 2018
This resolution comes in the wake of the news earlier this year that QLD would be removing genders from driver’s licenses (which turned out to be something implemented in 2016, so all of the outrage was extremely delayed).
In April, Queensland’s Attorney General, Yvette D’Ath, announced the commissioning of a discussion paper into recognising sex and gender diversity. The paper mentions the existence of limitations that have resulted from the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 2003 not being updated since its creation.
In this context, it’s evident the QLD LNP feels the need to resist inevitable and sensible changes, lest society become some lawless, genderless and Christmas-less wasteland.
Mount Ommaney MP, Labor member Jess Pugh, accused the Liberals of “cosying up to One Nation”, and Attorney General D’Ath said “[LNP leader] Deb Frecklington needs to tell her party to stop this offensive nonsense and treat all people like people”.
Fun fact: before the 2017 election that saw Jess Pugh elected to represent Mount Ommaney, the electorate was the LNP’s most marginal seat, so one has to ask if the Mount Ommaney branch is seeking to reflect the views of the people they want to represent or not.
Another fun fact: this is the same convention that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull spoke at.