Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Board Move To Ban Police From Parade
Image: In a historic first Commissioner Karen Webb (not in the picture) led the NSW police contingent at the 2022 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on March 5. This is the first time that a serving NSW Police commissioner marched in the Mardi Gras parade.
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) Board will soon present a move to ban NSW Police from the 2025 Mardi Gras Parade.
At their upcoming annual general meeting, the SGLMG Board is asking Mardi Gras members to vote on three resolutions about police participation in the beloved LGBTQIA+ event.
The board itself is not recommending board members vote one way or another, but support for the decision appears to be firming up ahead of the organisation’s AGM, which is being held this Saturday (7 December).
Three resolutions for members to decide on about police at Mardi Gras
The three motions that will be posed to members are as follows.
The first resolution recommends that police be banned from Mardi Gras until “they demonstrate a commitment to improving relationships with LGBTQIA+ communities”.
The second, created by Pride in Protest — four members from which are campaigning to be elected to the SGLMG board this year — recommends that police be completely banned, with little chance of the police ever being able to return to participating in the parade.
The third resolution is similar to what occurred this year — police being allowed to march, but not in uniform.
When Mardi Gras created a community consultation questionnaire earlier in the year, in order to gauge community feelings about on the issue, it found that the majority (54%) thought cops should not march in the parade.
Mardi Gras board: it is clear NSW Police are ‘not creating a sense of safety’
While the board does not recommend a vote for or against its motion, it highlighted members’ concerns that the NSW Police Force was not demonstrating a “commitment to better relationships and policing practices with our communities”.
“It became clear that the way the NSW Police Force interacts with our communities and other marginalised communities is not creating a sense of safety for everyone in our communities,” an explanatory document attached to the motion states.
“It was clear that there were improvements to be made, and more effort needed on behalf of the NSW Police Force to respond to the concerns of a significant part of our communities.”
Sydney LGBT community’s distrust in police growing throughout 2024
In the LGBTQIA+ comunity, there has been a clear rise in debate about the topic of cops at Mardi Gras this year.
This was bolstered by a largely negative report was released about the NSW Police‘s “aggressive and intense” policing at Mardi Gras, as well as the community’s heartbreak after former NSW Police Senior Constable Beau Lamarre-Condon was charged with the alleged murder of Jesse Baird and his boyfriend Luke Davies in February this year.
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