Page 2083 - Week 07 - Thursday, 24 June 2021
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grasses, and I am just not trustworthy. I am mostly digging holes. They are putting me on safe jobs like that; so that is good.
I went to a book club in Melba recently; that was a lot of fun. I also went to the Melba SMILE group, where they told us about the playground they were hoping to build.
I have met a lot of new people. Because I have been there for a while, I bump into people who I either know, which is lovely, or who know people that I know. Last night I was chatting to someone who knew my dad. He passed away a while ago, but it was lovely to share stories with someone who worked with him 30 years ago. It is lovely having those little intersections all the time.
There is a lot of stuff happening around Belconnen. I think it is the same story across Canberra. There is a massive effort by community groups and volunteers, and that is where a lot of this life comes from. Humpy Hall is one place that I would like to make a brief mention of. Humpy Hall is in Scullin, and it is one of the sites that hosts a lot of these community activities. They host church meetings, theatre rehearsals, yoga, exercise classes and dance sessions. A lot of those activities are run by volunteers and community groups; actually, Humpy Hall itself is run by a community group.
I would like to thank the South Belconnen Community Association, who ran that facility so well. They have run it for decades—for years—and it has recently been handed back to ACT Property. I want to thank them for the dedicated service that they provided.
Sometimes, of course, we also get to bring the suburbs into the Assembly. I think that is really valuable. I had a really good time at an event last week that I hosted in the reception room. It was the Diversity in Politics event. I was joined by eight of my female MLA colleagues and around 30 multicultural women leaders. We all shared tales about pathways into politics and the challenges of leadership for women in the community. It was a really nice event. I am looking forward to taking one of those events out to Belconnen soon.
LGBTQI+ events—LGBTQI+ fourth annual conference
MR DAVIS (Brindabella) (5.01): I rise to congratulate the good folk at the Equality Project who last week hosted the fourth annual LGBTQI+ conference, Better Together, at the Adelaide Convention Centre. I had the pleasure of going along to the conference and hearing a range of informative speakers who were able to outline for me the varying degrees of law reform happening right around the country that impact on sexuality and gender-diverse people, be it the ongoing campaign to decriminalise sex work; work happening in other legislatures to ensure that trans, gender-diverse and non-binary people are actively reflected in government documentation; or work that I know this government is focused on doing in this term on negating unnecessary surgery on intersex babies. It was a real thrill to meet so many activists and leaders in the space from right around the country.
The Equality Project are motivated by their core aim to create a space for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer communities, organisations, advocates and
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