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Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. How are we all feeling? Yeah. How are you all feeling? This is gorgeous things. This is gorgeous things. Do you know I've seen people here this afternoon that I haven't seen in years. So now I'm going to do the official opening launch for Carmen's traffic light. Is Carmen in the room? Anywhere? She should be here somewhere. [00:00:30] She's She's down the back. How about you come up the front? This is an honour of you, my love. Carmen was a pioneer. She is an absolute triumph. And someone that we as drag queens, the transgender community, the gay community have always looked up to and held her with great regard. Like I said, she was a pioneer. Thank you, Carmen. Ladies and gentlemen, Carmen, [00:01:00] this gorgeous lady has just finished last year filming how to murder your husband. How to murder your wife. Oh, yeah, I see. I see. I've got this thing against men. Sorry. And it was fantastic. She's an absolute gem in our community. And we welcome here. She's all the way from Auckland. She flew in this morning. She's been up since half past one huge round of applause for her, Please. [00:01:30] I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome to our our distinguished guests sitting at that table there. Georgina by. Is she Georgina here? She's on her way. I heard her walking down the street. The lovely Donna de Milo. As we all know, Dana was there with Carmen working in Carmen's coffee lounge. We tried to do the same thing here just [00:02:00] with flowers and change the colour to blue. Um, Donna, what were you saying? Oh, she didn't work in the coffee. Now she won't be a waitress. She was a balcony lady, were you? You were a waitress at the balcony, and I'm so looking forward to your also. We have sitting in our front table. My husband, he doesn't know it. I've always said this. [00:02:30] Grant Robinson, my love. So that's the lovely people. We have annual lovely cells. Welcome here. I'm going to now hand the mic over to to Kevin Hoi. Huge round of applause for Kevin. Thank you. Yeah. Uh um, just before I, um, [00:03:00] introduce Celia, I just want to call out to our whilst we whilst we arrange ourselves for, um supporting Celia and the other speakers. Um, no. I'll leave it up to our group, first of all, to to make to make our acknowledgements, uh, known with I would [00:03:30] that, but will die. OK, ok, you Thank you. [00:04:00] Yeah. No, I didn't Hold on a, um Fuck. Fuck me. Get down [00:04:30] here. Away, away, away! All the way. All the way. All the way here. [00:05:00] Uh, ladies and gentlemen, first of all in acknowledging the, uh, the of of this, uh, region, [00:05:30] we pay our our acknowledgements to them. And also, we pay our acknowledgements to you who have come along today to to honour, um, Carmen's legacies as, uh, Maori and as a of this, uh, of this community. We also come to acknowledge those legacies that Carmen left behind. Not only her flamboyance, uh, and her, um, you know, role as a a real, [00:06:00] uh, in this community. What she also left behind for us was the fact that we should never forget that we're Maori and that we are so that we should always stand as Maori and stand as within this community here. No, that's the reason why we're also here is to celebrate those legacies that, uh, come and left behind for us as well. That's my short, uh, promo. As far as that is concerned, my role [00:06:30] today is to welcome Celia, the mayor who worshipped of Wellington and also to thank Celia for her work that she has done for our community. Celia, that to me. And for those of you in the back who can't see this is the way I'm honouring Caron. [00:07:00] Yeah, right. [00:07:30] Well, let's start with the MP grant. And isn't it great that there's a greater diversity in our Parliament than there once was? In fact, I think it might have been diverse. It was just a little quieter than you are, Grant. I'd like to also acknowledge Trevor. Morley, where are you? Trevor, there we are. Gonna need you to come forward in a moment. Um, Trevor, what a mark [00:08:00] of the times that you're here to speak to this audience today. And what a wonderful, um, way of being friends in Wellington. This is I'd like to acknowledge Georgina if she's here yet. And can I just say there is another four days you can get your nomination in? I don't think it's very funny, and I would like to acknowledge the councillors that are here today, Councillor. I upon it, Councillor [00:08:30] Justin Lester. Any other contenders for the chains that I'm missing? That would be bad. Oh, good. Some hands. I don't know. Um, I think some of you have already got quite enough chains, so let's not worry about that. Um, Donna, um, lovely to have you here. And I know that there are many friends of Carmen's. I'd like to acknowledge our Carmen for today. She stepped out of the pages of a book a few times [00:09:00] last year, and it's lovely to have you here. I'd also like to say a big thank you to the WCC design team. Uh, we've got Trudy. We've got Anna. We've got Emily. We've got the traffic engineers. We've got all sorts of people here. And also, let's have a nice welcome to Jeremy Baker, who's joined our senior management team. You're a German. So proud members of the LGBT Q I community. We keep [00:09:30] adding a sort of a letter every decade, so that's pretty good stuff. And also So we're here as your friends. Um, so this is a great capital to be gay, to be bi to be intersex. We want to make it the friendliest community in the world, and I think we've got a real first here. There are other people that have got female traffic lights. There are other people that have got plump, rounded, well rounded [00:10:00] women and their traffic lights. But I don't think there's anywhere else in the world that has got a transgender icon beckoning you across when the lights go green. I'm sorry, Grant, about this sort of stopping with a male red male, but and coming forward with a female green. But, you know, there we go. That's greens and labour for you. So following the fun of convincing our dear friends, [00:10:30] the safety people at NZT A. That a woman with a hat was not a safety hazard, that actually the men would still know when to cross the road. When we had put Kate Shepherd in, we thought, Well, we've gone to all that trouble. Let's not stop there. And I have to say, Carmen is not going to be the last person that we have beckoning us across the lights. Um, I will leave the others to, um, the exciting moments where they're unveiled. But as [00:11:00] I say, I think she probably will be the only transgender one for the moment. But maybe we've got a bit of, um, catching up with some other people. I. I mean, we should also remember people who are not here today, including the real Carmen born Trevor Rope in 1936 and all the work she did. She was an HIV activist. She was a mayoral candidate. Imagine what would have happened if she got elected in 1977. Now some of us can [00:11:30] talk a little bit about outside of politics, but that would have been astounding. And I don't know if Georgina's got here yet, but she really, I mean, to be elected mayor of a rural town, as Georgina did is absolutely awesome. And again, her poison grace showed that diversity is always an advantage, not something to be tolerated. Not a problem but an advantage. Different ways of looking at the world. Now Carmen [00:12:00] campaign for hotel or bars to be open till midnight or even 2 a.m. the drinking age to go to 18 Prostitution to be made legal abortion to be decriminalised homosexual acts to be decriminalised sex education in schools and nudity on some beaches. Although at this time of year, that seems particularly unappealing. And she was an advocate here [00:12:30] and in our sister city of Sydney as well. So she really linked up people in different communities. I was delighted to be at her. I think it was her 70th birthday and meet her in person. And she just warm and amazing woman larger than life and never to be forgotten. So I'd like to thank all of you who are friends of Carmen, all of you who stuck up for the law change. Um, might even mention Fran Wilde because she was a leading light in actually the [00:13:00] homosexual, um legalisation bill. And since then, we've had marriage equality, but we still got pockets of resistance and narrow mindedness, but not too much in the capital. And certainly not in Cuba Street. So I'd like to pass over to Grant Robertson to say a few words cure it. OK, this is boring. [00:13:30] [00:14:00] [00:14:30] [00:15:00] [00:15:30] Yeah. [00:16:00] [00:16:30] Uh uh. Greetings, everybody. It's a real pleasure to be here. Uh, today one thing I'm I've been asked by the organisers to mention Celia has mentioned all of the wonderful people who are here. I want to mention one more person, and we've got Carmen's nephew Danny here. Danny, do you wanna make yourself known if you are here, understand? Yep, down the back there. So [00:17:00] there's a connection that, um, the Labour Party since since raised the whole red man green person crossing the road thing. There's a connection between the Labour Party and, uh, Carmen, which is a Carman. As most of you know, um was born and brought up in and one of, um, then Trevor's Rupe teachers was a man named Colin Mallard. And, um, Colin Mallard eventually came [00:17:30] to live in Wellington, and he was quite successful businessman. And he had, um, uh a career here in the city and would often run into Carmen and Carmen would shout out and say Hello, Colin and Colin. If he was with his business, uh, friends would sort of wave quite shyly back. Well, Colin's son, Trevor Mallard, insists that he wasn't named after Carmen, But we all know that he was, don't we? So Trevor brings his greetings to you as well. Uh, there [00:18:00] are people in the room here who are a far better place to remember. Carmen I met Carmen as as the as Celia did, uh, around the time of her her birthday. But what I want to just talk briefly about today is what Carmen meant for the city and what I think she still means today. And that was of somebody who was a shameless self promoter. Let's be up front about it. But at the same time was [00:18:30] taking with her a community coming out of a very conservative period of time in New Zealand and dragging literally that community along, uh, with her. And by the time I got here, the best part of 20 years later, Evergreen was still going, and people like Chris would talk to people like me and Jeremy and others late at night and evergreen about what kind of world it had been and what a difference Carmen had made to changing people's ideas [00:19:00] and perceptions about our community. And when I say our community, that was something that I learned from from Chrissy and from others was a very inclusive thing, and there was a grand and great diversity in our community and as um, Kevin has already said Carmen was very proud of being she was very proud of being Trans Person, but she was incredibly welcoming and inclusive of our big, broad, difficult rainbow of communities. And that was important [00:19:30] for Wellington. Celia has already said her platform for the 1977 malty would be regarded as largely conservative these days. Um, bars only open till midnight or 2 a.m. What was she on about? But she was at the cutting edge of of a very different time and a very different world. So it's that spirit of inclusion that I think we're celebrating here today. I want to thank the Wellington City Council and Celia in particular, for your leadership in bringing this initiative to us. I think there is the [00:20:00] potential for some traffic safety issues initially as Carmen pops up to frighten us. But we'll all get used to it and cross the road in a calm and graceful fashion. Uh, as we see there, I think she got an other ideas. Celia and I think you should make this your your parting gift. As you finish your time as mayor, I think there's a little spot of grass over by the architecture school in Vivian Street, sort of across the road a bit from from Evergreen and and [00:20:30] other such places, which would make a great place for a statue of karma. What do you reckon? So that's my challenge for future Wellington councils Looking at Deputy Mayor Justin Lester standing there in the middle of the room. Um, this part of town was Carmen's part of town. It is still a great place for our community. I want to say that that spirit of inclusion is continues to be an ongoing struggle. And I want to make a special acknowledgement to the [00:21:00] trans community in particular, that issues still remain in terms of safety in terms of access to health services and that we need to take that spirit of inclusion and be advocates as a community to make sure that we aren't just Wellington, where we tolerate difference. We're Wellington where we accept difference. We embrace difference, and we support everyone in our community to be who they are. And I want to give my commitment and I hope yours as well to the Trans community to take that [00:21:30] on into the future. My last job, um, today. So thank you all very much for coming. I really look forward to To To crossing, um, Cuba Street often, Um, with Carmen's help, my last job. And, Trevor, I'm gonna get you to start walking forwards. Now. My last, um, job is to introduce Trevor Morley, uh, to you today. It is, as as Celia alluded to quite something to have Trevor here. Trevor and Carmen had quite a lot to do [00:22:00] with each other back in the day. But perhaps not in the way that many of you might think Trevor was a policeman, a member of the vice squad. In fact, you might have even led the vice squad. And it would be fair to say there was a bit of vice around. Um, and Trevor and Carmen, however, um, became firm friends worked together. Well, I've heard Trevor speak before about Carmen and Trevor. You're very welcome today, Trevor Morley. Ladies and gentlemen, we've [00:22:30] been talking today a lot about people by name. We've got Trevor rope. We've got Trevor Morley, and that actually caused me a bit of mild grief when I was transferred onto the vice squad. Incidentally, we did used to have a vice squad. There was so much vice in new Zealand, but there are no more vice squads at any police station anywhere in New Zealand today. Now we can call that progress or we could call it a regressing. [00:23:00] But I one way or the other, we were a lot better society for it. But in any case, I was on the vice squad as a detective, and it didn't take long for people to become aware that my first name and cars were the same, and I would walk into, particularly the balcony or the International Coffee Bar, and through the smoke and mist, [00:23:30] I would hear a voice say, Trevor. Now one thing I learned quickly as a detective was that you never, ever called someone who wasn't straight by their first real name. To me, Carmen was always Carmen to her. I was always Detective Morley, and we had a good working relationship. But of course I never called her Trevor, [00:24:00] and she never called me Trevor until the first night when I was on duty in the vice squad, walked into the coffee bar and through the darkness came that somewhat piercing voice of Trevor. And I paid no attention to her because I realised that woman would be calling that name out to me and Carmen looked around and she wanted to know who had used her name in public without her permission. Silence descended on the [00:24:30] coffee bar, Trev, until finally Carmen worked out which one of her friends was invoking that dreaded word that should never be spoken in public. And she went over to them and with one large fist, didn't exactly punch it. But it was pretty close to it. To which and so Carmen said, who's been calling out my name and to [00:25:00] which one of her friends would say No, no, darling, we were talking to the detective, so my name came in for quite a bit of bantering, so to speak. But in those days there was a vice squad in Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, Auckland and they were well staffed by experienced detectives because the society that we lived in in those days deemed it necessary to have a vice squad so that [00:25:30] we could investigate all those things that we take for the that we take for granted today because of the progress with our society. And this is an indication I think of the group of people that we've got here, of the number of people who are involved in what would otherwise be known as vice work and there'd be AAA vice squad. But I developed a working relationship with Carmen, where, as I said she was Carmen and I was Detective [00:26:00] Morley and we carried out all kinds of inquiries and one of the reasons that I've come along today to speak about Carmen can't tell you too much. But a lot of it is written down in my notebooks for posterity, and that was that. She was always a person who treated me with respect, and I vice versa. She was pleasant. She was affable. She could sit down and have a cup of coffee with her and discuss the issues of the day. And when the time [00:26:30] came for me to say, Oh, come on car and we've got to go down to the Central Police Station and have a bit of a chat about this, which we did. But there was never any trouble, never any grief. She was always pleasant to deal with and had all the other people in the vice field behave as Carmen behaved. Then we would have been a pretty lazy squad of men because we wouldn't have had a lot to do a lot of work to do because she was cooperative as much as she could and always had a kind word in the nicest possible way. [00:27:00] So I just thought I'd mention that to you because a lot of people would see Carmen as some kind of a ogre or some kind of a figure in the dark background device. Nothing like that at all. So she was a person in my career who helped me in in the ways that she could to enforce the law that she didn't like. And quite frankly, I could tell you very often I didn't like it either. I couldn't see any problem with betting on a racehorse. I saw a lot of problems with the abortion [00:27:30] laws and things like that, and Carmen was well ahead of her time. But we are all the better for it. So I thank you all for coming along today, and if any of you looking at me thinking I know that fellow from somewhere, just pop your hand up and come and see me afterwards and we'll swap notes. Thank you very much. Has is Donna here yet? [00:28:00] Oh, there you are. It's your turn, dear. You should have been a policewoman with that height, Dana. Yes, yes. Sorry about that. But it had to happen. It was camp, not you. Never arrested me, ever. Thank you very much. Was saying such lovely words about our, I think cure everybody. [00:28:30] Um, excuse my voice. I've been 2.5 days in bed. I'm as slim as a read because I haven't eaten for two days. Just didn't feel like it. Um, I'm here on behalf of car, and otherwise I wouldn't be here on her memory. She was our, um she was She was someone we looked up to. She was someone that betrayed us, because in my day in our day, we were [00:29:00] classed as criminals whether we were or we weren't because we were different. As I've said before, when I was young, my mother always said to me, If you get into trouble, you want help, go to a policeman. Well, if you want to be a woman or you're gay or you're trans or you're anything different in the in the sixties you didn't go to a policeman, I'll tell you now, and she never did anything. Really? That brought our name into disrepute like we did, I suppose. [00:29:30] And luckily for her, she had a business, and so she was had a lot more respect. And also Chrissy, you see, Chrissy gets forgotten along the way, But she was there before Carmen, but she wasn't a self promoter like Carmen. Um, she was very She thought of the family name and she was a little bit more backwards in in coming forward. But she did exactly the same sort of things as Carmen did for for the street kids before the word street kids [00:30:00] came out, you know? I mean, I was one of them. I slept in the railway station toilets for two weeks when I first arrived, arrived in Wellington, and, um, it was and Carmen didn't come till about 1960 I would say probably 67 to Wellington. Um, and I used to work for Chrissy then and she was She come and had her coffee lounge building. She'd already rented it, but [00:30:30] she was out on the street, cracking it to get the money to to to to decorate it, you know, with all her curios. And, um, she used to come and see me on the I used to be on the door at the old Sunset Strip in street, and she used to come and say, How are you, girl? I've just come in for a breather and she'd be off again down the street. And then not long after that, she opened her coffee lounge. And then I think, like maybe two years later, she opened [00:31:00] the, um, the balcony. And, um, I was privileged to go and work for her for a year at the balcony, um, which I enjoyed. And, um, we became closer as friends than we did as workers and because I only worked for her for about a year. And then we became very friendly and we got very close in Australia. And I have to say that we keep forgetting that Carmen was a prostitute and that doesn't get brought up very [00:31:30] much. And it's a shame, because that is part of her history. Her history was that she was a prostitute. That's how she made her businesses. That's how she made her life. So I can imagine her saying I really should be the red light girl, especially on the corner of Vivian Street. Because that's where she wanted everything to be brothels. Everything in Vivian Street, all all the red light district should be in Vivian Street. She said when she wanted to [00:32:00] be mayor so that it could be policed properly. And, um, I'm very pleased to say that her memory carries on. And, um, I'm very grateful for everybody for keeping her memory alive. Um, because we we never will forget her as long as we're alive. And thank you very much, Celia, for for the, um, for making it possible for her to be up there. And, um yeah, that's about all from me. Thank you. Who's next [00:32:30] country? Right up low. Right. [00:33:00] OK, 25. [00:33:30] Bye room [00:34:00] acting. How they but [00:34:30] yeah, right. I'm just gonna ask the mayor city of Brown to come up, and we are about to turn on Carmen's traffic light. OK, ladies and gentlemen, can we be outstanding? [00:35:00] Please, my loves? And really we gonna count down 10. Let me hear it. Say it to God. Thank you. Jesus. Amen. Three. Wow. Sure. Yeah. Great to see you. Thank you so very much. Give me a second. OK.
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