The Informer

Australia voted overwhelmingly for YES in the Marriage Equality survey. Shelley Argent from PFLAG believes that’s why we’re having this religious discrimination debate. We spoke to her along with Joe Ball from Switchboard Victoria to talk about how this is hitting the community hard.

Sometimes people just want to sit in silence. Sometimes they sing a song. There are many reasons for calling Switchboard Victoria’s QLife service. The Switchboard CEO Joe Ball talks to us about who calls the service and why. We also talk about how to support ourselves and each other in the religious speech debate.

QLife is available 3pm to midnight Melbourne time. It’s on 1800 184 527 and at qlife.org.au

We were fortunate to get Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor to speak to the Informer this week. Angus talks to Arion Potts, Informer Assistant Producer about our current oil stocks and how we can take control as individuals of oil prices. We also asked him about what people are saying in the religious freedom debate and how he’d answer people in his area when they have questions.

The recent attacks on oil fields and facilities in Saudi Arabia caused a dramatic drop in global oil supply. Wholesale prices rose quickly and consumer prices may follow. Informer Assistant Producer Arion Potts spoke with two experts about the issue.

First is Dr. Jessie Moritz, professor at the ANU Center for Arab and Islamic Studies. Next is John Blackburn, former air vice marshal and current consultant to the industry. John talks about Australia’s fuel and energy reserve policies and what that means for us here in Australia.

The Religious Freedom discussion happening in Australia is hitting a lot of our community hard. Research out today from Just.Equal shows that an astounding 80% of the LGBTIQ+ people polled feel worse now than during the Marriage Equality Debate. We spoke to Rodney Croome and Dr. Sharon Dean about the research.

Elections for the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria are currently underway. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who live in Victoria can now vote on who they want to represent their communities on the Victoria Treaty Advancement Commission’s advisory council. The Commission aims to establish treaty between the state’s first peoples and the state government. This will help address many current social issues facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and to promote their human rights. Australia is currently one of few Commonwealth countries that has no treaty with its first nation’s people. 

Running for a position on the advisory council is Annette Xiberras, an Aboriginal Elder of the Wurundjeri community here in Melbourne, and is the only LGBT candidate in the running. The Informer spoke to her about why she is running and what she hopes to achieve through treaty. 

And moving on to the dumpster fire that is American politics. Nicholas Hynes unpacks what’s happened in Washington in the past day. Suddenly there’s a smoking gun for impeachment that has left Trump’s team in a dither. Events are moving quickly.

The last 24 hours in the United Kingdom politics have been unprecedented. But so has the last week, the last month, and the last couple of years. The story keeps getting more and more strange. Nicholas Kameniar-Sandery unpacks what’s been happening in Westminster.

Weddings are pretty significant moments in lives, and every wedding has a photographer or two, or twenty. In 1957, two men appear to have gotten married in an apartment, a friend took some snapshots and the photos were never returned by the photo lab.

Now, producers from the Our One Story LGBT docuseries are looking to find the guys in the photos and return the pictures to them. Arion Potts joins on their quest.

Last Saturday, if you were around Princes Bridge, you likely came across the Extinction Rebellion protest blocking off the bridge. The protesters were there to ask the government to declare a climate emergency. We spoke with two of the protesters about their experience – including what it’s like to get arrested at a protest.

We also spoke with Thea, a year 11 student who is involved in the School Strike For Climate, to be held Friday.