20 January 2022
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Lisa
Richards
Politics and Public Administration
This Quick Guide provides information
about Australian federal, state and territory parliamentarians who have publicly
identified as LGBTIQ+ while in office.
For the purposes of this Quick Guide, ‘LGBTIQ+
parliamentarian’ refers to a member of parliament (MP) who has publicly identified
as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, queer or with another minority sexual
orientation or gender identity either before or during their time
in office.
This Quick Guide lists the name, party, chamber, state/electorate,
dates in office, and significant firsts. This information is compiled from a
range of sources including the Commonwealth Parliamentary
Handbook, Australian state and territory parliaments’ websites,
political party and parliamentarians’ websites, biographies and statements by parliamentarians.
We are grateful to the state and territory parliamentary
libraries for their assistance in compiling this Quick Guide.
While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of
this Quick Guide, it cannot be guaranteed to be comprehensive. Accordingly, the
Parliamentary Library would appreciate receiving any additional information or amendments.
Party and chamber abbreviations
| AD Australian Democrats |
| AJP Animal Justice Party |
| ALP Australian Labor Party |
| DFD Dignity for Disability |
| DIG Dignity Party Incorporated (formerly
Dignity for Disability) |
| GRN Australian Greens (and state/territory
Greens parties) |
| IND Independent |
| LIB Liberal Party of Australia |
| LNP Liberal National Party (Qld) |
| Chambers |
| HA House of Assembly |
| LA Legislative Assembly |
| LC Legislative Council |
| Reps House of Representatives |
LGBTIQ+ representation in
Australian parliaments
Current representation
There are currently 29 LGBTIQ+ MPs in Australian parliaments
(3.5% of all federal, state and territory parliamentarians).
As a proportion, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Legislative
Assembly has the highest representation of LGBTIQ+ MPs in Australia at 16%. Tasmania
and Queensland currently have no LGBTIQ+ state MPs.
Table 1: Current number of
LGBTIQ+ parliamentarians in Australia, by parliament
| Parliament |
Total MPs (no.) |
Current LGBTIQ+ MPs (no.) |
Current LGBTIQ+ MPs (%)* |
| ACT |
25 |
4 |
16.0% |
| WA |
95 |
5 |
5.3% |
| Federal |
227 |
10 |
4.4% |
| NT |
25 |
1 |
4.0% |
| NSW |
135 |
5 |
3.7% |
| SA |
69 |
2 |
2.9% |
| Victoria |
128 |
2 |
1.6% |
| Queensland |
93 |
0 |
0.0% |
| Tasmania |
40 |
0 |
0.0% |
| Australia (total) |
837 |
29 |
3.5% |
Source: Compiled by the
Australian Parliamentary Library.
*Percentages are rounded.
Note: The ACT, NT and Queensland are unicameral parliaments.
Australian federal parliament
Significant firsts
Bob Brown (GRN, Tas) is the first member of federal
Parliament (and any Australian parliament) to publicly identify as LGBTIQ+. After
his service in state parliament, he was elected to the Australian Senate in
1996, representing the Australian Greens.
He ‘came out’ publicly in June 1976, on the ABC’s This
Day Tonight. At the time, homosexuality was still criminalised in Tasmania.
In his memoir, Optimism:
reflections on a life of action, Bob Brown noted (p. 47):
By the time I was a teenager the death penalty for male
homosexual acts had been abolished in Australia, but long jail sentences and
lifelong humiliation were the order of the day.
Brown is also the first openly LGBTIQ+ party leader in
Australia, serving as leader of the Tasmanian Greens from 1989 to 1993, and
later the Australian Greens from 2005 to 2012.
Penny Wong (ALP, SA) is the first openly LGBTIQ+
woman in the Senate, elected in 2002. She also became the first minister and
Cabinet minister in the Australian Government to publicly identify as LGBTIQ+
when appointed as Minister for Climate Change and Water in 2007.
Trent Zimmerman (LIB, North Sydney) is the first
openly LGBTIQ+ member of the House of Representatives, elected in 2015. During
his first
speech to parliament on 2 March 2016, Zimmerman stated:
I hope that my election to this place will, in a small way,
send a message of hope: that your sexuality should not and need not be a
barrier, that you can be gay and even be a member of the Australian Parliament.
Kerryn Phelps (IND, Wentworth) is the first openly
LGBTIQ+ woman in the House of Representatives, elected in a 2018 by-election.
Table 2: List of LGBTIQ+
federal parliamentarians
Source: Compiled
by the Parliamentary Library.
*Selected under Section 15 of the Australian
Constitution in the
Senate or at a by-election in the House of Representatives.
^Senate dates are derived from the date the Senate terms started/ended, rather
than the date the person was elected.
Note: retired parliamentarians are listed
as ‘resigned’
Australian
state/territory parliaments
Significant
firsts
Bob Brown (IND; GRN, Denison) became the first openly
LGBTIQ+ parliamentarian in Australia when he was elected as an Independent to
the Tasmanian House of Assembly for Denison on 4 January 1983.
Giz Watson (GRN; North Metropolitan) became the first
openly LGBTIQ+ female parliamentarian in Australia when she was elected to the
WA Legislative Council for North Metropolitan Region on 14 December 1996.
Andrew Barr (ALP, Molonglo; Kurrajong) is the first and
only Australian head of government to publicly identify as LGBTIQ+. He has been
Chief Minister of the ACT since 11 December 2014.
Chanston ‘Chansey’ Paech (ALP, Namatjira; Gwoja) is the
first openly LGBTIQ+ Indigenous parliamentarian in Australia (descendent of the
Arrernte and Gurindiji peoples). In his first speech to the NT Legislative
Assembly on 18 October 2016, he stated:
I am a Centralian man. I am the nation’s first openly-gay
Indigenous parliamentarian. I am eternally proud of who I am and where I come
from. I own it and wear it with pride. I am young; I am gay; I am black, a
true-blue Territorian.
Table 3: List of state and territory LGBTIQ+ parliamentarians, by
state/territory
Source: Compiled by the
Parliamentary Library.
*By-election or selected to fill a casual vacancy, including via a recount/countback.
^Legislative Council dates are derived from the date the Legislative Council
terms started/ended, rather than the date the person was elected/defeated.
Note 1: retired parliamentarians are listed as ‘resigned’.
Note 2: The ACT, NT and Queensland are unicameral parliaments.
Note 3: Queensland has not had any publicly LGBTIQ+ member of state parliament.
[1]. Bob Brown, Optimism:
reflections on a life of action (Melbourne: Hardie Grant Books, 2014),
31; Bob Brown, Second
Reading Speech: Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth
Laws—General Law Reform) Bill 2008, Senate, Debates, 12 November
2008, 6698.
[2]. Brian Greig, First
speech, Senate, Debates, 1 September 1999, 8105.
[3]. Penny Wong, Second
Reading Speech: Plebiscite (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill 2016, Senate, Debates,
7 November 2016, 1883–84.
[4]. Louise Pratt, Inaugural
speech, WA Legislative Council, Debates, 23 May 2001, 4.
[5]. Dean Smith, First
speech, Senate, Debates, 18 June 2012, 3433.
[6]. Janet Rice, First
speech, Senate, Debates, 27 August 2014, 5783–84.
[7]. Robert Simms, First
speech, Senate, Debates, 13 October 2015, 7491.
[8]. Trent Zimmerman,
First
speech, House of Representatives, Debates, 2 March 2016, 2792.
[9]. Trevor Evans, Second
Reading Speech: Plebiscite (Same-Sex Marriage) Bill 2016, House of
Representatives, Debates, 13 October 2016, 1890.
[10]. Julian Hill, First
speech, House of Representatives, Debates, 13 September 2016, 698.
[11]. Tim Wilson, Second
Reading Speech: Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Bill
2017, House of Representatives, Debates, 4 December 2017, 12330.
[12]. Kerryn Phelps, First
speech, House of Representatives, Debates, 26 November 2018, 11384.
[13]. Angie Bell, First
speech, House of Representatives, Debates, 31 July 2019, 1633.
[14]. Nita Green, First
speech, House of Representatives, Debates, 31 July 2019, 1344.
[15]. Brown, Optimism,
31.
[16]. Alison Standen, Inaugural
speech, Tasmanian House of Assembly, Debates, 22 May 2018.
[17]. Luis M. Garcia,
‘“I’m gay”: MP goes public, now tongues are wagging’, The Sydney Morning
Herald, 6 June 1990, 1 [Available via SMH
archives].
[18]. Don Harwin, Speech:
Seasonal Felicitations, NSW Legislative Council, Debates, 20
November 2014, 3233.
[19]. Penny Sharpe, “It Gets Better – Penny Sharpe
MLC”, YouTube video, 3:31, 14 December 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvc6e4OTtd8
[20]. Helen Westwood, Speech:
Marriage Equality, NSW Legislative Council, Debates, 31 May 2012.
[21]. Bruce
Notley-Smith, Inaugural
speech, NSW Legislative Assembly, Debates, 2 June 2011, 5.
[22]. Alex Greenwich, Inaugural
speech, NSW Legislative Assembly, Debates, 14 November 2012, 2.
[23]. Benedict Brook,
‘Marriage
equality “not the be all and end all” says new gay NSW Liberal MP’, Star
Observer, 6 May 2015; ‘Shayne
Mallard’s wedding’, Australian Financial Review, 17 February 2014.
[24]. Benedict Brook, ‘NSW’s
newest gay MP supports marriage equality but won’t be heading down the aisle’,
Star Observer, 29 May 2015.
[25]. Giz Watson, Inaugural
speech, WA Legislative Council, Debates, 10 June 1997, 3.
[26]. ‘About
John’, John Hyde MLA [2008 archived website].
[27]. Pratt, Inaugural
speech, 4.
[28]. Lynn MacLaren, Inaugural
speech, WA Legislative Council, Debates, 17 June 2009, 5.
[29]. Megan Smith, ‘Sally Talbot:
Life and Politics’, OUTinPerth, 3 July 2007.
[30]. Lisa Baker, Speech:
Marriage Equality, WA Legislative Assembly, Debates, 23 September
2015, 1–2.
[31]. Stephen Dawson, Inaugural
speech, WA Legislative Council, Debates, 12 June 2013, 5.
[32]. Heather McNeill,
‘“Being
gay just feels normal here”: Perth’s most popular suburbs for same sex couples
to live revealed’, WA today, 15 December 2017.
[33]. Peter Foster, Inaugural
speech, WA Legislative Council, Debates, 26 May 2021, 6.
[34]. Andrew Olexander,
First
speech, Victorian Legislative Council, Debates, 4 November 1999, 48.
[35]. Steve Dimopoulos,
First
speech, Victorian Legislative Assembly, Debates, 11 February 2015,
229; JOY, “Steve Dimopoulos”, Saturday Magazine (podcast), June 1, 2019. https://joy.org.au/saturdaymagazine/2019/06/steve-dimopoulos/
[36]. Harriet Shing, First
speech, Victorian Legislative Council, Debates, 10 February 2015,
84.
[37]. ‘Gay
marriage a first for Australian MP’, ABC News, 20 December 2012.
[38]. Kelly Vincent, Second
Reading Speech: Family Relationships (Parentage) Amendment Bill, SA
Legislative Council, Debates, 30 June 2010, 23:53.
[39]. Simms, First
speech, 7491.
[40]. Andrew Barr, Speech,
ACT Legislative Assembly, Debates, 11 December 2014, 4350.
[41]. Suzanne Orr, ‘It’s not just
a survey, it’s personal’, HerCanberra, 9 October 2017.
[42]. Chris Steel, First speech,
ACT Legislative Assembly, Debates, 13 December 2016, 94.
[43]. Johnathan Davis,
First
speech, ACT Legislative Assembly, Debates, 3 December 2020, 173.
[44]. Chanston Paech, First speech,
NT Legislative Assembly, Debates, 18 October 2016, 31.
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