State support for safe spaces

MINISTER for Equality, Martin Foley, visited Ballarat’s Piano Bar last week to announce increased support for western Victoria’s LGBTQIA+ community.

The $3.2 million initiative will allow for the development of at least two new safe spaces in the region, and Mr Foley said the assistance will be important for younger rural residents.

“Particularly when it comes to our regional young people in the LGBTQIA+ communities, we know the need for support and assistance for those young people is really apparent,” he said.

“LGBTQIA+ people need support because they are disproportionately isolated and disproportionately overrepresented in all sorts of negative outcomes, but given the opportunity to get together in safe, welcoming spaces, they thrive.”

Including the State’s 2022/23 budget, the funding responds to requests for further LGBTQIA+ support from local community groups.

A three-year trial period will see the design and running of the spaces include community consultation.

The funding comes alongside the next stage in the $700,000 LGBTQIA+ development grants program, which aims to help 22 organisations working in the space.

Local resident and advocate Holly Ellis said the new spaces demonstrate the growing support for the LGBTQIA+ community within regional Victoria.

“I’m so proud to grown up an era where visibility is becoming more normalised and people are feeling more included,” she said.

“Especially being so centred in Ballarat, I know a lot of people who have to travel to places like Melbourne just to find a safe space.

“It’s become kind of a trope or a myth that support is only available in the big city. To have support regionally just means a lot because now people don’t have to travel so far to get the help they need.”