EXTRACT FROM
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
HANSARD

Ms SHING
Eastern Victoria

MEMBERS STATEMENTS
Australian marriage law postal survey

Thursday, 21 September 2017

Australian marriage law postal survey
Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) — I rise today to address members of the LGBTIQ community, their families, their friends, their workmates and colleagues and people who love them exactly as they are. The marriage equality postal survey is having an enormous effect on us as LGBTIQ people. It is having an effect on our families and on our friends, and it is having an effect on the way in which we feel as though we can be part of the community in which we live and work and have our own families and our own lives, which are in many ways unremarkable but in many ways required to be defended at every turn.
To anybody who is facing additional distress or upset, to anyone who is facing anxiety, to anyone who is feeling the greater effects of this, which are often the result of an aggregate of a lifetime of shame, of justification, of the need for ongoing explanation as to why they or we are good enough, please know there is a groundswell of love and support for you.

There are resources available to you. There are means available to you to make sure that you take care of yourselves in the course of this survey, and I would urge you to reach out, to talk with others, to be kind to yourselves, to be gentle with the people who you care about to make sure that we all get through this together.