1: It's time to claim my space. I was one of just a few journos who held @AndrewLamingMP to account prior to 2021. I lived in Bowman from 2012-2017 and I reported on him via @margokingston1's @NoFibs. AN EVOLVING THREAD on #Laming #LGBTQ equality #Journalism #Books and more.
2: It began in 2013 when I submitted an article on #MarriageEquality to Margo's #CitizenJournalism news site @NoFibs. Up until then, the site had not really covered that issue, which mattered a lot to me. @MrKRudd had just announced his support for reform: nofibs.com.au/burgewords-on-…
3: The image above is of Senator Sue Boyce (@SenatorSue) former LNP Senator for Queensland, crossing the floor to become the first LNP politician in the country to vote for marriage equality. It was a short walk but it gave the #LGBTQ community hope.
4: When Margo instigated a #CitizenJournalism project to cover the 2013 federal election, she asked me onboard the project. I was working as a #subeditor on a permanent casual contract for Fairfax Media, so I leaped at a reporting project. Reporting is 'real' journalism, to me.
5: I'd been working as a journalist and broadcaster for years by then, and Margo's green light was extremely welcome to someone who'd never really had a break in the MSM. I'd hadn't lived in #Queensland before, and I had a great willingness learn about it.
6: #Bowman was, by then, a safe Liberal electorate but Margo was happy to cover seats where democracy was struggling. After ten months living on Coochiemudlo Island, one of the Southern Moreton Bay archipelago, I already knew the area known as #TheRedlands certainly qualified.
7: How did I know? Well, the divide between the Labor-leaning islands and the conservative mainland was startling. State ALP had strong foothold, and a lot of people spoke about federal member Andrew Laming as a bit of a glossy player who wasn't much liked out on the bay.
8: I got in touch with all the candidates, including Laming, who said he'd speak when the election date was announced, then set about researching the political history of #Bowman. The Palmer United Party's John Wayne (real name) was the first candidate up: nofibs.com.au/bowman-owned-b…
9: The ALP's Darryl Briskey gave me a quick lesson on the strong Labor roots of the state electorates in The Redlands, once a region of suburban primary producers: nofibs.com.au/briskeys-back-…
10: The Greens' Penny Allman-Payne underlined how Bowman's campaigns are fought, quite literally, on the road. Laming continued to dodge my questions, which I guaranteed were the same as those I was posing to all candidates: nofibs.com.au/the-greens-fac…
11: Then things got boring. Laming was playing a small target, and reneged on his agreement (first indication that the man is a liar). So I decided to let him speak in his own words by digging up some recent tweets he'd let slip earlier that year: nofibs.com.au/bowman-electio…
12: They were the first indication of how Laming is happier commentating on electorates (and issues) that aren't his. I also got the sense that he had a lot of time on his hands, noticing patterns in his social media posts and tweets.
13: Then things got interesting. Laming and his supporters invaded a weekend market that had specifically asked for no political campaigning to take place. This was the first indication that the man and his supporters had respect issues: nofibs.com.au/trolls-tweets-…
14: BTW, the troll named 'Stephanie' was one of several anonymous accounts Laming operated. Behind the scenes, several locals shared the range of handles Laming utilised to agree with and support his own tweets and posts.
15: Then, a candidates' forum. Well intentioned, but predictable (as they so often are), the only theatre was seeing Laming dive for his 'Go Pass' to prove he used public transport. #Desperate: nofibs.com.au/pie-sky-redlan…
16: In person Laming wore a smooth-talking edifice. In hindsight he came across with the wax-like youthful demeanour of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. Much time was clearly spent in front of mirrors.
17: During the forum candidates were asked about a big-ticket issue: marriage equality. Laming talked-up civil unions like a pro on the subject. He won the seat. Abbott won the top job. For those of us with lived experience of disenfranchisement, it was depressing for equality.
18: But Margo asked me to stick around @NoFibs writing an arts-related column. I dug in and did some work I'm still proud of, like interviewing comedian Amanda Bishop, who played @JuliaGillard on stage and screen: nofibs.com.au/amanda-bishop-…
19: And a piece on the protest roots of Christmas Carols: nofibs.com.au/o-come-ye-forc…
20: And one on the critical junction between the traditional and social media that I was eminently qualified to write, since I was now writing, reporting and editing for both: nofibs.com.au/publish-button…
21: The big scoop I got was finding and interviewing George Georgiadis, the asylum seeker advocate (also a public sector nurse) who'd been threatened on social media by the government: nofibs.com.au/visiting-conce…
22: Laming came back onto my radar when the marriage equality campaign went up a gear in 2015. The annual electorate survey he conducted had caused controversy on social media because he was accused of massaging the results: nofibs.com.au/marriageequali…
23: By this time, hearing that Laming was loose with the truth fell into the category of 'The Man Could Justify Anything', which he's exhibited again this week with his pathetic explanations for up-skirting a female constituent.
24: My writing career had gone up a gear too, with the publication of my debut memoir 'Questionable Deeds: Making a stand for equal love'. @margokingston1 kindly launched it for me at @avidreader4101 assisted by @KrissyKneen: nofibs.com.au/questionablede…
25: I was on the brink of becoming not just a journalist but an active campaigner in a national movement that was aiming to change this nation forever... and I wasn't done with Laming yet... (more to come)
26: Meeting @RodneyCroome at his book launch in Brisbane was a pivotal moment for me. His title 'From This Day Forward' remains a crucial line in the sand for Australia's marriage equality movement, and it was a call to arms: nofibs.com.au/two-books-one-…
27: Then, the unthinkable: the life-changing incident that I had experienced in 2004 - the sudden death of my long-term partner - left another man in legal limbo, and then another. Marriage Equality couldn't come fast enough for #LGBTQ Australians: nofibs.com.au/keeping-marria…
28: I was triggered into a bundle of anger and grief. My book #QuestionableDeeds was partly an attempt to get an important issue - how LGBTI can be kept from our senior-next-of-kin status by relatives of our partners and institutions - onto the table. I felt like it had failed.
29: Abbott had white-anted marriage equality by raising fears around #SafeSchools and locking the LNP into a public-vote approach. Suddenly, Christian friends on #CoochiemudloIsland started blocking me and my partner Richard on social media. A war was on: nofibs.com.au/lgbti-versus-c…
30: I weighed in on the fear-mongering around Safe Schools via an avenue I knew intimately: #Shakespeare: nofibs.com.au/better-ban-the…
31: As @TurnbullMalcolm ramped up his plebiscite on equal marriage, Laming hit the mainstream media to present his annual electorate survey as a "scientific" record of Bowman's opinion. @theprojecttv gave his claims no critical analysis whatsoever: nofibs.com.au/divorced-from-…
32: But a group of us had door-knocked the electorate with help from then ALP state candidate @KimeRichards to petition locals on what they thought about marriage equality. With a survey designed by social scientist Dr Sharon Dane, we came back with overwhelming support.
33: A local Fairfax journo picked up the story, then asked Laming to provide his view on our data. According to senior journo Brian Williams of @redlandbulletin Laming replied: "I couldn't care less" before hanging up the phone: redlandcitybulletin.com.au/story/3821106/…
34: Several LGBTI+ news sources ran with that clear statement as a headline, forcing Laming's press office to call and ask for the comment to be treated as off-the-record (see screenshot in the article in Tweet No. 31).
35: @AmyRemeikis then working for @brisbanetimes also picked up the story: smh.com.au/politics/feder…
36: Once the headlines were changed and the comment retracted, Laming started to play nice, professing on social media that he supported the democratic right to petition. He messaged us privately saying he was supportive of what we were doing.
37: This has all the same hallmarks as his behaviour this week... apologising in a smooth, detached manner, while dog-whistling to his base about his "scientific survey". We wanted to hand him the petition in person, so got into a business breakfast ahead of the 2016 election...
38: ...and cornered Laming to hand it over. Being in close proximity as I glad-handed him long enough to get photos, I saw what a fake he was, incapable of being real in the moment, muttering blokey platitudes like "good work Mike" as though that was the language I spoke.
39: I cut off his nonsense and told him to sit for five minutes and read the thousand names on the petition, the voices of real people wanting to see change for the sake of LGBTI+ loved ones. It all went right over his head and, no doubt, into his office bin. Ears of tin.
40: Soon after, I got into my first ever literary event @BrisWritersFest on its inaugural LGBTI+ panel with Dr Heather Faulkner (@HAFOTO) and David Hardy, moderated by Emile McPhee of @lgbtiLegal: nofibs.com.au/i-am-my-first-…
41: The energy in the room was palpable... in the audience were the survivors of terrible #homophobia under Sir Joh's regime. They were in better shape than me, though, who blubbered my way through part of the presentation.
42: I couldn't hold it in... all the grief and rage of our situation and my experience of being completely disenfranchised in my late partner's death certificate and kept from handling his affairs. But I got through and met some fab people in the book-signing line!
43: Working from my tiny office on a small island off Brisbane's seaboard, I participated in bringing down @TurnbullMalcolm's plebiscite nonsense with @just_equal and @pflagbrisbane: nofibs.com.au/the-killing-of…
44: It was a short-lived victory because Turnbull pushed for his postal survey instead. By this time I was working full-time for Fairfax as a senior reporter and could do little more than donate money to the High Court challenge by Rodney Croome and PFLAG's Shelley Argent.
45: When I could, I did what I know best in tough times. I wrote: nofibs.com.au/the-hate-that-…
46: The survey took place, but we distanced ourselves from it as it happened. Verbal homophobia on our island streets had started the day @TurnbullMalcolm announced the survey so we kept to ourselves, eventually moving back to the country in another state.
47: The day the results were announced, I scrambled to see Bowman's: 62% in favour! I tweeted at Laming, calling him a liar. He had nothing in the grab bag by then. After years of gaslighting LGBTI+ Redlanders and their friends and family, a cheat was at last exposed.
48: The next piece I penned was quite exposing, detailing the cost of campaigning for me personally: nofibs.com.au/bad-fairy-at-t…
49: A visit from Dr Sharon Dane and her wife Elaine to our new home inspired a positive piece about two gutsy #women and their long marriage journey: nofibs.com.au/from-this-day-…
50: In the years since I have often wondered if anyone would catch up with Laming and we'd all see the real fool on show. Thanks to the courageous women who this week stood up and outed his unacceptable abuse, we have. I'm done with him now.
51: In 2018 Richard and I married. We already were, having had a civil union in progressive New Zealand in 2008, but we fought hard for the right so we had a small ceremony at Inverell Court House, the first same-sex couple to do so.
52: I also knuckled down on my long-held dream of writing long-form fiction, and now I have a debut novel set to be published by @MidnightSunOne in October this year. 'Tank Water' lifts the lid on the taboo subject of #GayHateCrime in the bush.
53: I'd love you look out for it at your local bookshop from October 16 this year! I have poured a lifetime of stories into it, about my country origins, and the way families out here can tough out even their deepest prejudices when it comes to loving their gay kids.
54: Thanks for reading. As the inspiring @monaeltahawy regularly says, love and solidarity to you all!!! xxx
55: Postscript. Laming voted for marriage equality in parliament, he even got off his arse during the debate and reined in some of the religious faction’s attempted amendments around celebrants in the armed forces. He’s a pretend Christian, as we discovered. Devout for the votes.
56: But unlike some of his Liberal colleagues he didn’t pay tribute to any of the campaigners who’d schooled him on the way. Laming couldn’t by then, since his belligerent hand had been forced long before.
57: Across my encounters with Laming I always sensed an entitled, patriarchal energy. He weirdly respected me in ways he would very unlikely have done had I been a woman. I hate that shit. Always have, and I concede it’s a privilege to be able to rise above boys’ club ‘benefits’.
58: I also neglected to mention the great assistance and persistence of @CarlKatter in the campaign to rally Australians into blocking the marriage equality plebiscite. Such generous support with contacts and emailing!
59: The whole story of why we blocked the plebiscite is yet to be told in detail. That’s because the religious freedom thing is not over yet. Suffice to say the marriage equality campaign was not a homogenous front. The LGBTIQA+ community does not agree on everything, of course.
60: One of Laming’s bullying techniques is to sow division in his opponents, and he certainly tried that on Bowman’s marriage equality campaign. He succeeded at times. It was a weird, confronting time and the same techniques ran through the whole campaign, and parliament.
61: The show-ponies got their book deals long ago, but watch for publications yet to come for the complete picture from the minds of the real architects of this entire reform.
62: Again, thanks for reading, and goodnight.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
