Budget a Dud for LGBTIQA+ Australians

There was something in the 2025 Federal Budget for almost everyone.

The Government spent hundreds of millions to end violence against women, boost outcomes for Indigenous Australians, look after veterans, improve aged care, support people with disability and lend a hand to people on government assistance.

But LGBTIQA+ people were a group conspicuous by our absence.

There was no mention of the discrimination, poor socio-economic outcomes and longstanding inequities faced by LGBTIQA+ Australians.

There was no recognition of LGBTIQA+ mental health risk, housing risk, poorer educational outcomes or surging prejudice against us, let alone any funding to tackle these problems.

There was no funding for a much-needed LGBTIQA+ Human Rights Commissioner, despite there being commissioners and envoys for virtually every other group facing discrimination.

Even in places we could have been included we weren’t.

The Government’s social cohesion package tackles hate against religious and ethnic minorities, but not LGBTIQA+ people.

Extra funding allowing treatments to be claimed on Medicare included menopause-related hormone replacement therapies, but not hormones or other gender affirming treatments for trans and gender diverse people.

Despite tens of millions in wage increases for workers in the aged care sector, there was still no plan to protect LGBTIQA+ workers at faith-based aged care facilities from discrimination.

Distractions and broken promises

In the Government’s defence there was $2.7 million for HIV support and prevention.

That was in addition to $15.5 million for the ten-year national LGBTIQA+ health strategy launched in December and $3.5 million to fund LGBTQIA+ civil society organisations in the Asia-Pacific announced in February 2023.

The problem with these initiatives is two-fold.

They are chronically underfunded.

The health fund amounts to a paltry $10 per LGBTIQA+ person and was not for frontline services.

The overseas LGBTIQA+ fund was a tiny fraction of what countries like the Netherlands ($75m), Sweden ($34m) and Canada ($25m) spent in the same year.

The other problem is that the health and overseas funds were not even mentioned in the Budget, despite prior funding for other minorities being trumpeted.

It seems the Government expects us to be satisfied with crumbs and that it considers even these crumbs are too politically embarrassing to be mentioned in a mainstream document like the national Budget.

As disappointing as the Budget was, it’s not surprising.

This Government broke its promise to protect LGBTIQA+ people in faith-based schools from discrimination.

It failed to protect LGBTIQA+ people from vilification.

It ignored its previous commitment to an LGBTIQA+ Human Rights Commissioner.

It kicked an own-goal on our inclusion in the Census.

To the Government’s credit, it did protect trans and intersex people from workplace discrimination in the Fair Work Act, a reform championed by Just.Equal Australia.

But this ray of hope only highlights how otherwise gloomy the Government’s record is.

Far from being a sign of progress, the Prime Minister marching in Mardi Gras seems like an attempt to distract us from his Government’s poor record.

As we head into a federal election we need strong commitments from both major parties to

• protect LGBTIQA+ people from discrimination in faith-based schools and services
• prohibit vilification
• end unnecessary medical interventions on infants with innate variations of sex characteristics
• end conversion practices
• lift the gay, bi and trans blood ban
• include gender affirming treatments and surrogacy on Medicare
• keep gender affirming care for young people, and not weaken existing discrimination protections for LGBTIQA+ people in the name of “religious freedom”

We need whoever forms government after the election to do much better on LGBTIQA+ rights, equality and wellbeing, especially as the threat to our rights rises across the world.