Northern District Community Health is leading a charge to have a rainbow flag flown on Gannawarra Shire Council’s buildings annually.

The shire attempted to pass the change without community consultation at last week’s council meeting by including it in the proposed Council Policy No. 148—Flags Review.

The council recommended councillors adopt the reviewed Policy No. 148 – Flags and the Community Flag Schedule, and fly the rainbow flag on May 17, 2024 for the International Day against homophobia.

Gannawarra Shire Council will not fly the rainbow flag for the LGBTQIA+ community this year but will instead consult with the Gannawarra community on whether it should be an annual event.

Cr Garner Smith moved an alternative motion to the meeting recommendation, take the proposal out to the community for consultation before making a decision.

“Either flying the rainbow flag is beneficial and creates an overall better Gannawarra or it does not. If there is a benefit and it reflects the needs of the Gannawarra community, then it may be that flying the rainbow flag should be included in the flag policy. The best way to know is to take it to community consultation.

“Right now, Council information does not support an inclusion problem in Gannawarra. We must be certain that compassion is not used to manipulate Council for political or personal satisfaction. Especially without benefitting the vulnerable. I fully support performing acts that create a genuine benefit for disadvantaged members of the community. But if there is a genuine problem, then for me, it is important that there is a genuine solution. I would rather be more proactive than rely on symbolic gestures.

“It is disappointing the Mayor and another councillor voted against consulting with the public. Community satisfaction with Council is at an all time low. We need to make sure our actions represent the attitudes and needs of the community.”

In NDCH’s request, Interim Chief Executive Officer Margaret McDonald expressed, “The act of flying rainbow flags at Cohuna and Kerang was both a symbolic gesture and a powerful statement of solidarity and inclusivity towards the LGBTQIA+ community.” With council citing that the request aligns with their own Social Inclusion Strategy 2019-2023, which states that “The Gannawarra Shire Council will continue to foster the spirit of inclusiveness. Council will seek to identify and remove barriers that people face – particularly those within the Council’s immediate sphere of influence.”

The [Koondrook and Barham] Bridge did reach out to all seven councillors before the April 17 council meeting asking if they could, as councillors, cite anywhere within the shire that council have identified barriers LGBTQIA+ people currently face, and whether in their time as councillors, have there been any policies or procedures identified or implemented by the Council that would conflict with the Council’s social inclusion policy?

Only one of the seven elected shire representatives saw fit to reply to the media request. With silent councillors, the next best data set was GSC’s Social Inclusion Strategy Survey data. The survey was put out to the 10,549 ratepayers; a source has revealed to The [Koondrook and Barham] Bridge it gathered “120 respondents maximum.”

The report failed to mention its findings were based on just 1.1 per cent of the shire’s population. When asked ‘How inclusive are we for people with disability, who speak another language, identify as LGBTIQ, Indigenous, youth, elderly or have low income?’ around 28 per cent of repondents felt Gannawarra Shire was “not inclusive at all”, almost 15 per cent felt it was “very inclusive” and almost 13 per cent felt it was “not very inclusive”. Of the 120, ‘Around 7.5 per cent of respondents identified as LGBTIQ’.

On the matter of policies or procedures identified or implemented by the Council, that would conflict with the Council’s social inclusion policy, the only one that comes to mind would be the shire’s decision to discriminate against those who had not been injected with the trial therapeutic known as the Covid-19 injection. Despite the therapeutic neither stopping infection nor transmission, the ratepayers were denied access to council buildings, libraries and pools, while remaining free to co-exist in retail spaces, publicly and privately.

To play devil’s advocate, one might suggest it was to keep people ‘safe’, but that would have required testing of infection status prior to entry.

In a bid to heal the wounds inflicted on so many in the community, I (Lloyd) did propose the flying of a dove flag on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2023. 18 months of watching lifelong friends and family turn on each other, people in line at the bank advocating for the unvaccinated to be “lined up and shot”, the teen social media groups identifying and targeting Pfizer free kids, and people broken from giving up their bodily autonomy to feed their kids had worn thin.

Unlike the 2022 petition from the Rainbow Local Government group, which obtained 29 signatures and was successful, the request to fly the dove was shelved until GSC could put in place a flag-flying policy. Ultimately, the dove failed to fly with the council, citing the new policies in section 3.8.

Section 3.8 states that the Council will not enter into agreements to raise flags with parties that are associated with political groups. The 2022 application to fly the rainbow flag originated from the Rainbow Local Government, which is, as their website states a campaign coordinated by the Victorian Pride lobby. An online tool by Rainbow Local Government lists council candidates from across the state and rates them depending on whether they have taken the ‘pledge’ (see image). While the councillor tool only lists four possible categories of a tick, dash, cross and question mark, GSC Councillor Smith appears to be awarded a custom icon, associated with death. No, not political at all.

You can have your say:

• By visiting www.gsc.vic.gov.au/flags and completing an online form.
• By picking up a Have Your Say form from Council’s Customer Service Centres at Cohuna and Kerang and completing your form by 5pm Thursday, May 16.
• By emailing council@gsc.vic.gov.au.
• By mailing Gannawarra Shire Council at PO Box 287, Kerang Vic 3579. 

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 25 April 2024.