Amanda – co-conspirer, zinester and film-maker came over recently with a head full of scooter stories.

We were trying to remember who played the first gig back in late august 1998 at emu tek café. Cult lena we were sure of, Amanda reckoned middle aged women with a gripe did but I was vague on it.
{I’d like to forget about that one}.

Amanda - “you were playing guitar and singing”

Agent Black - “alledgedly, we were shock’n! what were we thinking?” (me and ange with the same haircut, looking like teenage paige bois – well we had JUST discovered ‘marie louise’)

Amanda - “Well you did it cuz you could”
And I guess yeah that’s what scooters about. You do it cuz you can.

Amanda - I wanna tell the story right from my beginnings of how when I was around in the 80’s, during my formative years living in Darlinghurst with a bunch of post-punky anarchists, vaguely eco-feminists. Cuz there was a lot of anti-nuclear disarmament stuff going on. There was a tiny weeny punky girl scene going on, mostly birtha mertha and disband, there probably would have been about 3 girl punk bands and there was a group of ghetto girl bands that were kinda reggae-ish like ‘the stray dags’.

I’d heard of bands from England like the slits and the raincoats, x-ray spex, nina hagen and that kind of shaped me in a way, that music can provide the spirit and the ideas and images that unite behind social movements and sub-cultures. Anyway, I used to go and see a lot of live music in my 20’s and earlier, this was around the time pubs and bands and rock was at its prime. And then I just got out of the habit..

I started working on this film script which is set in Darlinghurst, about 2 sisters in a punk band and I thought I better go and see some live music. I went and saw a bit, Nitocris…
But there wasn’t much around, there was grunge, but I mainly knew about o/s grunge. I found out about ‘team dresch’ after reading about them in a magazine. They were all dykes and I was looking for music to play on gay and lesbian radio. I went to waterfront records and found team dresch and took it home and I used to look at the zines and stuff and that’s how I found out about riot grrl and then I read a notice about a group of young women called ‘snatch’. It was an Australian Contemporary Women in Music initiative and these young women that had got involved, facilitated by Vicky Gordon. They were meeting and wanted women to join to put out this zine and put on gigs. So I went along (although I don’t know what possessed me to go) but I went along and I met you (patz) and angela and for some reason we got along (prob cuz me and you were dykes) and we continued to have this friendship and you both knew so much more about riot grrl music so we used to spend nights getting drunk at the oxford talking about music and getting so excited. Talking about the latest thing we’d found out or heard and gossip and who was supposed to be a dyke and who they were doing…..

AB didn’t we fabricate most of it?..

Amanda - Well we would have made it up like they should have. ‘snatch’ put out a coupla zines, it didn’t last that long. We knew about Kylie Purr and had been along to the Purr gigs.
I remember the Grot Grrl gig and I don’t think you and I knew each other at the time. GG was one of the first riot grrl zines put out by flea and sam difference from Melbourne. They had a benefit gig at the journalist club, purr played + evol + fleas band at the time sulk.
Me and you got the idea of putting on gigs, helping or providing opportunities for women in music and then Meredith and some friends opened up emu tek café, we were hanging out there one day and decided to start something. Meredith provided the name and the first flier.

AB – remember mero was right into winter steel so all the fliers had her on em.

Amanda - Yeah, this character, an animated barbie doll kinda thing from liquid tv which was on at the time. We were at emu for just over a year. We really believed in the idea so we weren’t put off by the fact that not a lot of people turned up, sometimes we were just playing to walk-ins and polymorph staff.

I used to dj, dj scuttlebutt and you were dj trotski – that was a lot of fun. I like playing the old skool stuff. One of the pivotal moments was when ‘bracode’ just lobbed up, cuz they’d read about us in lotl and they brought their instruments and played. That was pretty exciting, like those things are mythical, it was really exciting. And from then members of bracode became involved in the collective.
More people got involved in the collective; m’lis has made a huge contribution especially with her technical skills. Then we had a meeting and discussed going to a different venue. I’m very fond of the imperial and when we had our first gig there, we were just so knocked out cuz so many people turned up. Bracode were on the bill.

Over the years I’ve just been surprised about how many different acts we’ve had on, how many women that are around playing. There are tonnes. Scooter provides avenues, it gives women who haven’t played anywhere at all except maybe their lounge rooms the opportunity to do a first gig and get the experiences and sets up networks, allows people to get together for various activities and women can think about putting their writing in a zine, their own or contribute to another zine. And put your artwork up. We have the weekly radio show on skidrow and have put out cds. That was really exciting having Tribe 8 and Glitter Mini 9 and The Third Sex on the first cd.

Scooter provides a space for women to be vulnerable in, to express themselves without getting lots of criticism.

Oh yeah, that was another thing, one of the things me and patz did before we started scooter is that we went and saw ‘all over me’ and the minute I heard babes in toyland playing at the beginning I thought this is gonna be so great and I love the soundtrack and there’s a scene in a club with leisha hailey playing in a band, ‘helium’ and the club does exist, it’s sorta like a doco, and we thought we want something like that. It gave us a visual of what scooter would look like cuz we’d never been to a club like that. With girls being a part of that kind of music. We were so excited.
We’ve done what we set out to accomplish and we’ve done a lot more and we’ve been successful more than our wildest dreams. If it’s a success its obviously meeting a need and what we’re doing is relevant to some women.

I’d like to think that scooter is a comfortable space and it’s a reasonably friendly crowd. If I turned up cold I’d think it was a sanctuary really. I just love the idea of girls getting up on stage and making a lot of noise. I think it’s exhilarating, people expressing their anger, ideas about stuff, frustrations, angst about being a girl, politics and for me it’s what meditational music is supposed to do for you. I just come out feeling calm..

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Meredith has been a driving force of the dyke/feminist/activist community for years - she's
just far too modest to ever mention it. She was one of the originators and facilitators of scooter, and she and her partner – domino, currently collaborate to produce dyke pornfest, SLIT. If only she'd ignore her modesty long enough to do a smutty spread in the mag ...

AB: You’re finalising the latest issue of the non-profit dyke porn mag ‘Slit’ which you and Domino do the design and layout, contribute a lot of the content and are the facilitators/distributors. It was interesting reading the stories from Jade Snow Kemety in issue 3 of Slit where she talks about Wicked Women and how easy it was say 10yrs ago to orchestrate events, create art and performances and survive on the dole!

MW: Shit It often feels like it, I spent 6 years on the dole studying and being a full time activist, doing community tele and dyke funraising gigs…Yeah it seemed a bit easier. You had access to cheap venues, time to hunt them, you could actually rent warehouses…We never did club gigs, it was always in friend’s warehouses. Though there are still spaces like that…the chocolate factory, space 3. But it seems harder to do stuff in spaces that are different, ha! or maybe I’m just getting too old to deal with the cops and the huge lug ins. We were very spoilt we had a few warehouses that were easy..

The Buckland St warehouse in Chippendale was my fave. It ran for 3 years, Jade and M’lis from Scoot set it up. That was home to a huge amount of queer culture... Dyke pirate/Up yours put on a pile of chixcentric gigs - a coupla Xdressors ball’s, women’s warehouse parties, band days, film nights. WW had Ms Wicked finals, Leather pride and Word of Mouth Leso arts collective put on a copla art exhibitions and performance nights there. Gawwwd we even did the Queer TV test transmissions there which I loved. We turned the WW office into the control room. It was crazy, building it over a week, installing micro wave links on the roof (we were so lucky we borrowed everything, a few ace engineers at commercial stations). Buckland St had fab line of sight to the UTS tower where the TX was. It was only a weekend broadcast as part of the Mardi Gras festival but it was huge We had a pile of live stuff and hrs and hrs of great edited homo stories huge fantastic crew…opps I could go on for hrs about community tele, a wee bit off track. I often daydream about being on the dole and having more time for Slit but I couldn’t handle the hassle you get now though I’m looking forward to the pension.

AB: Slit is only one project your involved/have been involved with, you were there at the beginning of Scooter, in fact you came up with the name

MW: Yeah, it was you, Amanda and me the 1st copla gigs. I was part of da collective that set up emu (electro mutoids unite) a space we developed to try and merge culture, tekky nerds and vegan food with a fat queer flavour. Scoot started here. It kinda worked but it was a bit of a challenge in a internet café ha…It was a good beginning but it meant we had some eclectic gigs - from electro/trash one week to rap, then a punk band the next to politkco performance artists to zine launches…and a lot more vid mixs, sometimes just whole cuts. I think M'lis cut up her whole USA tour of chick/queercore and showed it for one gig. Often we didn’t have bands, it was more anything goes. It is hard to believe now but we just couldn’t find them. We had a few ambitious attempts at live band streaming/net chats with bands in England and zinemakers and of course the fab dj’s Trotsky and Skuttlebutt spun great tunes every gig.. But Scoot totally went off after Bracode crashed from the Gong one gig… and your total passion for it constantly inspired ..I think we were at Emu about 8 months or soo and then you talked the Imperial into having Scoot…and then huge ness, bands come from everywhere and this great sense of a community slowly built up.

Why did Scoot start up? I spose at the time there was a gaping hole in the scene, no live music. When I was a baby dyke you couldn’t go out with out seeing a women’s band and then for a few years there was none. I’ve always been like we have to build our scene our own culture…or we won’t have a community. The women’s music scene had disappeared for a bit, ace musios bif tek were around but nothing on the punk genre really, or that I knew about, you knew more bands…When I was a baby dyke we had a stack of bands and non stop girl music courses, women’s day at skidrow. Every leso gig had a band - Stray Dags, Wimmin and Boys, Party girls, Birth of Mirtha (Bumby who now runs King Vic was in this cult band for ages) I was involved in community media so I was always part of crews putting on bands as fundraisers for cat and queer tele mainly. We often had a few bands to hassle but when we started Emu we only knew of Cult Lena (Alza and Liz from the Scoot coll) and you and Amanda djed the whole thing.

And why the name?…Scooter stuck I went through my dairy back then to check out the other names I had down they are a kak - Kittyfingers, Clitsticks, Broads electro…But Scooter seemed perfect at the time, had that riot y free feel to it. I actually nabbed it out of an issue of Giant Robot, they have a great classified section with bands and zines I’d never heard of. So Scooter, it just stuck. We whipped up a few leaflets of my fave puppet Annimation at the time “Winter steel” on her Harley (off Liquid tv) and scooter was born.

AB: Facilitated by a women only collective has allowed Scooter to maintain control over its identity and create a comfortable framework to grow, form alliances and contribute as part of a community. It does not exclude men, but ensures that the majority of the performers /artists/zinesters and techo’s are women. These self-defining and strategic essentialist politics can introduce rigidity and ghettoising, something which Scooter has been accused of..

MW: Aghh fucken rubbish what like the revolution has happened? Yeah I’ve heard this rot before I’m all for the ghetto, some of the most exciting creative shit is born outta ghettos. Ghettos can mutate and that’s something that Scooter does. There are a zillion places that are accessible to straight queers, there is nothing stopping them setting up a group that will reflect their interests. In the 1st year of Gurlesque we had this “Oh your’ve put back the queer movement 10 years” cause of the women only policy and with Slit “It will stagnant if we don’t include men…” I don’t think Scooter is about essentialist politics. The women focused approach of Scooter is not just about biological essentialism, but about a recognition that gender is not just biology but brings with it social, economic and cultural bagage. Just as equal pay for equal work is a useful litmus test for some kind of economic equality, the existence of women’s spaces is fucken healthy and a great indication of resistance to the oppresiveness of patriachy. Chick rock. Chicks rock.

AB: Are these feminist fundamentals still relevant to Scooter today?

MW: Fuck yeahhh until patriachy and capitalism have been crushed.
And another thing about Scoot. As well as fostering chix who play music, it’s also offered a home to kids/groupies who love then and a pile of artists, you have video makers and photographers and visual artists in the collective, so its makes a neat home to pile of alt artists and activists. And it doesn’t rely on money. the 4 bucks entrance fee is sooo worth it.

AB: ‘Slit’ gigs seem to be one of the few events in Sydney that attract a diverse crowd of women. With yourself involved in so many different fragments of the lezzo/queer community, do you feel that there is generally a lack of x-over within the different scenes??

MW: Yeah that is true but I think its changing. I think everyone is suffering at the moment. No one has any cash so are pretty selective about what they go out to I have no idea where everyone has gone but pulling more than 200 kids is hard. I think dyke events still have a stigma of not being professional enuf if blokes aren’t involved it’s a bit daggy. You have to put on soo much more to please lesos…there is still a bit of snobbery and misogony I reakon . But Slit has been soo supported by artists from diff scenes which is ace and we are totally indebted.

AB: You rarely let it be known that you’re one of the ideas people/facilitators behind such concepts as scooter, sheila autonomista, slit, gurlesque, emu tek café. Many women, yourself included within an anarcho-feminist community seem to be uncomfortable with accepting recognition. Why so??

MW: Ha you can answer this one too…I think you nailed it I’m just one of the ideas people and I’m good at getting things going but it’s always a crew, so it’s always a group jobbie with the accepting recognition. Maybe it’s a legacy from involvement in collective politics where we challenged ourselves about leadership dogmas, but the rest of the world is obsessed with the leader and they find it hard to give the same power to all who have worked and built up a project. I’m usually one of those daggy pottering background types…this interview is seriously challenging my comfort zone. I reckon people always need to think about how power develops within collectives, and get better at both giving and recieving recognition.

AB: Looking at ‘Slit’ it has allowed you to publish some radical artistic, ideas on dyke sexuality..

MW: I think Slit is really exciting. It’s trying to showcase/merge sex culture art porn and politics which is kinda a feat in itself. And remove the impetus of money which is kinda a contradiction as it costs a packet to produce. But I think it’s really important for our sexuality to have a chance to be separate from the pink dollar commodification of sexuality, we are not a vodka advertisement. Initially we started it for a bit of titillation and to cover the freaky anarchy porny side of dyke culture that gets such minority support from the leso media, who are sooo busy doing advertorial. We have a radikal agenda and we are interested in the big issues desire, pleasure, non productive sex ha! (and all da other stuff). And taking a collaborative approach with artists and writers, and documenting our own subcultures.

AB: Can you talk about activist inspirations ?

MW: When I was 20 I went on a work solidarity brigade to Nicaragua that was prob the big epiphany for me, it blew my mind. I was their 6 months I spose a lot of kids go to Mexico now and get inspired by Zapatista activists. For my genny lotsa lefties went to Nica, Cuba or the Phillipines on brigades to get educated. So for me it was meeting many Sandanista revolutionaries that rocked my world. I was there during the contra (American sponsored mercenary army that fought the Sandanistas for 12 years) kid napping of a German brigade killing two. So an internationalist brigade was got together to go down and finish the housing project they were working on. I was the Aussie on it, there were activists from everywhere in the world FMLN, IRA. Basque activists, Farc, mexican, german, scottish, vietnamese, chilean. Every night people would talk about things they were involved on in h/er own countries. It was awsome.

I got totally passionate about community media and got to see all these great micro stations that were community run, sooo ispiring. So that was it for me. I thought if we own and run our own media we will overthrow capital. Hmmm I wish it was soo easy. When I got home I lived community tele for years helping to set up the test transmissions in Sydney (Metro/Cat/Queer TV) over 6 years. This led to the last license (channel 6) being given to the community, now Channel 31. One kwerl thing was I had just finished my trade at tech. It was a kak, we would have to get the test tx license from DOTAC in Canberra and they were so excited we were the 1st girls ever to hold a tele license in Australia (myself and Louise Stenhouse ). Even though it was a tiny 2 week test license each time, we were still chuffed.

For more info about SLIT or to subscribe, submit, advertise checkout their site – www.slit.cat.org.au

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Melissa is a hugely diversely talented woman especially in a techy capacity - without her dedication over the years scooter would have been permanently unplugged! She has recently been passing her skills on to up-and-coming techies in the mixing booth at scooter gigs. She is also half of the hard work and vision that is scootstar records.

You’ve been an integral co-conspirator in scooter over the years. In all areas – facilitation, teckky, web design/maintenance, fliers, lugging etc. how do you feel scooter has progressed (or regressed) since its first inception as a feminist space in Sydney.

Scoot’s progressed - it’s bigger, more popular and established, and has attracted the interest of more & more women in sydney, australia, and overseas. There are more women involved in the scooter collective. Scoot’s got a lot more areas of production happening than just gigs – putting out cds & zines, a radio show, merchandising, organiing tours, video production, artwork, websites, a record company, etc (tho realising a lot of these projects is still often reliant upon the energy of the same 2 or 3 core people). Scooter has recognition now as an exciting and ongoing piece of alternative or underground women’s culture in sydney. It’s helped inspire women musos and bands. It’s also progressed just in terms of the skills lots of scooter women have learned/acquired.

Do you still get all excited seeing a crowd of women jumping to a girl punk band?

Yeah – scoot’s damn good when the bands & crowd are goin off! & u get a great view of it all from the mixing booth – leaves ya with this huge grin that feels like it’ll never fade…

You also design/maintain the scooter site and have just spent the last 4 months training a few women tekko’s to do sound at scooter, hows did you come about with tekky skills??

Just by having an interest in this side of things. I was always into tools & building stuff when I was a kid – even tho I wasn’t that good at it – like the wonky go-cart I built whose axles totally bent at right angles the first time I got on it & tried to fang down the farm hills; and the really-well-designed yet sadly poorly constructed wooden raft which kinda sank in our dam a few minutes after setting sail – but I was pretty proud of both of these espec after me dad quietly fixed them up for me later.
And I had fun mucking around with a soldering iron & my stereo speakers – anyone can do this sort of stuff so it makes u realise that electronics can be pretty basic stuff.

Came to sydney and joined Radio Skid Row – their tech was leaving at the time & I’d been hanging around him a bit so he trained me up to take over after he left – this was the coolest experience cos I was way outta my depth keeping a radio station on air – and just had to learn heaps every way possible & wing it a lot.

Was involved with a dyke project ‘word of mouth’ – like everything else I was involved in they had no money so when it came time to put on performances we couldn’t pay sound & lighting people so I did it – studied other rigs & asked the hire places & others lotsa qns to pull it off … fumbled thru it somehow – stressy but fun.

Can’t remember how I got into website stuff – maybe thru cat@lyst – the community Internet/activist group www.cat.org.au – they host scooter – yay to them!!! was probably cos website making is so easy pretty much anyone can do it.

How important is it for women to not be afraid of educating themselves and taking on tekky roles.

As important as it is fer women not to be afraid of anything they want to do. And tech is an area that could really do with more women helping out – like most behind the scenes tasks I guess. It’s heaps of fun & a total ego boost to be able to do such stuff. All you really need is an interest in this side of things – then u just find ways to learn – the best way being by asking, watching, and most importantly helping others who already have skills. Books are great too & there’s lots of info on the Internet. TAFE & other courses are useful/practical. But yeah, working with someone who already knows wot they’re doing is the best – as long as u can get them to let u actually do some hands on stuff. And there’s so many women who are actually quietly doing techy stuff which shd really inspire others – like mero & patz who are central controllers at big television stations; & safari, sarah, carina, etc who have amazing computer & internet programming skills; plus women we know who are lighting & sound techs, engineers, etc – usually they’re all really happy to talk about it & show others how to do stuff. Not many people know that women (janene, mero, cat, & me) mainly built the current radio skid row studios at addison rd – directing the building & wiring. And women like mero, louise s, carmin, carmen, dahlia, jane, patz, carina, kim etc have been integral in the techy side of the development of community TV – such as Metro TV test b’casts, CAT TV, and gay & leso TV like Xit-Way-Out.
It’s not a matter of assuming you can just do anything – it’s more like at least trying to do something to see if you can do it – and remembering that the first time we do something new we’re probably gonna be crap at it, and maybe even the second time, but it quickly – like exponentially quickly- gets easier & better.

You mentioned once that ‘Scooter’ is a concept. How do you view scooter in the future. Do you think it will and should continue in the way it does? Is it still relevant?

Fer sure scooter is still really relevant and shd continue. But ……. In some ways it’s become a bit narrow – youth & band orientated and not diverse enough. It’s got a bit insular & needs to look outwards more and take a few risks. There are other groups doing inspiring stuff – like the Club Arak crew & Slit crew, etc – which shd also inspire scooter.

There were 3 women who started scooter – amanda, mero & patz – 2 of them were in their 30s. Now there’s a heavy focus on the ‘younguns’ which is cool but can be limiting in a way. When it was formed there were plans to include lots of crossover – multimedia, performance, diverse creative women, techo & diy stuff, plus the punk girl bands of course. This happened a bit at emu but hasn’t been followed thru so much – perhaps it still will or maybe there’s a need fer smthg else to start along side of scooter – or maybe I shd just stop whining about it & help create it – anyone else???

What’s been your scooter highlight?

Hmmm, tricky cos my brain’s never been much good at the whole memory-lane thing – um, dredging, dredging, oooh yeah – the lansdowne gig at the first sheila fest last year where bracode got everyone on the stage near the end; and the first bracode gig at emu – where the band & the scooter crew negotiated the ‘we’ve come all the way from w’gong - can we play’ business sitting outside the caf on the pavement – a real taste of rock & roll superstardom in the making; ticking along now – and the first ‘middle aged women with a gripe’ show – putting the fun & silliness mixed with talent back into showbiz. And a lot of bands’ first gigs – they always seem to have the most raw excitement – like penis envy’s first show, & bitch craft & bitch slap, etc etc. Romaine’s, Deep in Sound’s and Sista She performances were pretty special too.

You’ve been involved with Pirate radio – Sick FM/reclaim the streets. Tell us a bit about how you went about choosing a tx site/setting up/content etc?

I’ve had a tricky experience with pirate radio – building the transmitter proved to be a lot easier than doing the broadcasts. Sites are difficult – need height which in a crowded city like sydney is not very available or accessible - wd end up using people’s flats, cafes, roofs, empty gutted buildings that are now yuppie apartment blocks. Out on the street up telegraph poles fer ‘reclaim the streets’. Had to do a lot of shimmying up poles or hanging out top story windows to rig antennas. Sick FM was with Naomi who was amazing at rigging, getting venues, content, djs, etc… was short lived but fun.
The TX is now with various community activist groups that have done pirate radio b’casts at baxter detention facility, newcastle electrofringe, and around the traps in sydney – listen out fer it.
Tell us about your involvement in the Buckland St womens Warehouse.. how was it setup/organised/was it collectively run? What was some of the gigs/highlights/stories from those days?

Woooh yer really taking me down the lane – not sure this is the trip fer me but seeing as you’ve asked here goes … dunno wot other people’s experiences are but if they’re like mine then big exciting projects come at some personal cost … The Buckland St warehouse was the idea of a few of the wicked women crew, in particular jade, jasper & anando & mero in the beginning of the 1990s. We found this great space on buckland st, chippendale – close to broadway – with huge ceilings, a mezzanine, pillars, huge windows, and heaps of room to make a big venue – it was a really fantastic and even beautiful space. So we did the commercial lease thing and got other women to live there (unlawfully but we never got busted). me & jade had to do a lot of building – create rooms, put in plumbing, kitchen, bathroom, wiring etc. We were all on the dole at the time so had no money. Jade & me wd go out in jasper’s big old holden at night and scavenge materials from commercial sites - we’d get spotted and threatened and the cops wd be called but somehow we scraped thru it all ok. Jade’s an artist and an incredible builder, handy person, craftsperson. I was kinda her offsider in building & she taught me a lot. It was a hard slog fer both of us cos there was A LOT to do but we did it & there were a lot of laughs & adventures (& of course dramas).

Used the space as a venue for lots of exciting dyke/queer/etc performances – like wicked women shows, and dyke pirate events, leather pride shows, etc. Performers wd also use the space to rehearse – wd often come home & there’d be half clad trapeze artists swinging over the dinner table (well almost).

Was a great space but difficult to maintain cos of the expense. We tried to run it collectively. Lasted several years and during this time were a few tricky personal dramas cos a lot of us were very close friends and things could get intense. So some of us would fall out fer a time which was really sad at the time and kinda tainted the whole incredible/wonderful/exciting side of the whole project. But was a pretty magical experience which meant a lot to me & others – wd be so fuckn fantastic if there was a dyke/women run venue/space like that again in sydney and we didn’t have to rely on commercial pubs & clubs so much.

You’re an expert in refugee law and you’ve been following a case involving two gay boys seeking refugee status which is being taken to the high court.. tell us abit about this case and the developments and the importance as a precedence in the courts it and how it will effect sexual minority refugees

Ya mean the homosexual men who are seeking asylum here cos of fear of persecution in their country. I work as a refugee lawyer in a community legal centre. We all know that asylum seekers are treated very badly in Australia – yet homosexual asylum seekers seem to have been singled out fer some extra-special treatment or discrimination.

The law’s been interpreted here to be that if a homosexual will be safe in his/her country if s/he can hide, deny, or suppress his/her sexuality then they are not entitled to refugee status in Australia and must return to their country. This is the case for homosexuals in countries where homosexuality is illegal and homosexuals can be imprisoned or killed for being gay or lesbian. Australian Decision-makers (the Department of Immigration & the Refugee Review Tribunal) are denying homosexuals refugee status here on the basis they can return to their country and ‘be discrete’ about their sexuality – ie hide, suppress, or deny it or simply pretend to be heterosexual and even marry.
This sort of reasoning is not applied to other asylum seekers. People with particular religions or political beliefs are not being denied refugee status here because they should hide or suppress their religion or politics. Only homosexual asylum seekers are being treated like this. Anyway, one of these Decisions is being challenged in the High Court on the basis that the reasoning being applied to homosexual asylum seekers – the requirement to be discrete – is unlawful. The case was heard in the High Court a couple of months ago and there should be a judgment soon. I went to the High Court Hearing and from the way the High Court judges approached things its looks like they will make a good judgment and rule that this ‘discretion reasoning’ is unlawful. The judges were pretty clear in their dislike of this sort of reasoning. So the law should get better but still you have to wonder how/why this reasoning developed in the first place and it seems readily attributable to an unacknowledged discriminatory approach or even homophobia in many refugee decision-makers which needs to be addressed along with their other prejudices.

Who/what inspires you as an activist.. Influential experiences?

‘Who’ - this requires a list (in some or no particular order) … patz, mero, nicole, louise, amanda, jade, safari, sarah, gemma, rosie x, rachel, romaine, kim bowers, alison, annie, bracode girls, jasper, my sister fiona, performance artists such as azaria, sex, glitta, etc. (ummm, will have forgotten others who are also really important…. )

These women inspire me in their attitude, creativity, commitment and the fun and excitement they bring to being active and activist. A lot of them have trained themselves and have amazing design and performance skills and innovative ideas. They’re all kinda unique and often make me feel down-right privileged to be part of these social / cultural / activist scenes.

Women who are into creating things for themselves and others – who have enough ego to want to be part of something exciting and to be proud of it but not so much that they’re just in it for their own vanity or self-promotion.

Whats’ yr theory on the new york power loss. One theory is aliens working with the US government? Hackers maybe?

Aaaagh, cosmic retribution maybe – to show the usa (& unfortunately canada had to share in the lesson just to get another country real cranky) something of what it’s like in iraq now after the usa etc presence there has helped - directly & indirectly - to largely destroy the electricity distro there. Dunno really – bit outta touch with the news – wot blackout????