Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern believes Kiwis can’t be complacent in being inclusive to the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) community, saying we must ensure our schools and workplaces are inclusive, as she attended the Big Gay Out.
The Prime Minister told reporters at the event in Auckland, which she had attended over a number of years, it was “one of many events that shows inclusion and diversity of New Zealand and that’s something to be celebrated.”
“My message here today is that actually we can never take for granted, that we need to make sure that schools, that workplaces, that our communities are inclusive places for particularly our LGBTI young people.”
Beyond that, Ms Ardern flagged mental health and gender reassignment as significant areas of focus for her Government this year.
“We know for instance, gender assignment has been a significant issue. The cap there has been lifted, we know that there is additional work that needs to be done though. Our Minister of Justice Andrew Little has recognised that and spoken to [it] in recent times.
“We know that around HIV, access to prep is really important and we have the conversion therapy work that our member Marja Lubeck is doing.
“One of the issues is having the expertise available and that’s something that in recent times we have overcome that. And then there’s the resourcing question. So again moving that cap was a key first step but actually making sure that that additional support to make sure they’re still actually being performed is another question altogether and that’s somewhere we need to do more, Ms Ardern said.
“Something that I’ve flagged we’re really interested in making sure we do more on is particularly mental health for our LGBTI young people. We have the evidence that tells us that that’s particularly a group of young people who have often experienced poor mental health and given that our budget this year is focused on mental health that’s a group I want us to do more on," she said.
SHARE ME