Statistics New Zealand needs to ask people about their sexual orientation in the census, says Robert Hesketh, director of the Office of Human Rights Proceedings. He was interviewed in NEON, the magazine of the National Equal Opportunities Network. The latest issue focuses on Equal Employment Opportunity issues for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, including unlawful discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. "Nobody knows how many gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT) people there are in New Zealand workplaces," says the magazine. "Nobody knows whether they earn more or less than the rest of the population, nor whether they suffer higher rates of unemployment or greater job insecurity. Without solid, reliable data there is no way of knowing whether this group suffers discrimination, nor whether the situation for them is improving." Senior researcher for the AIDS Foundation, Peter Saxton, says nobody knows what all the problem issues are for GLBT people. “We've got great data identifying disparities because of ethnicity, sex and age, but because we don't ask the question about sexual orientation we're very much in the dark… Even once we've identified a disparity that might be caused by discrimination or poor service delivery, without doing regular surveys we don't know if it's improving or not,” Saxton says. The Office of Human Rights Proceedings has been pressuring Statistics New Zealand to include a question on sexual orientation in the census. Robert Hesketh, director of the Office of Human Rights Proceedings, says the lobbying has made a difference. In the 2006 census, questions about Civil Unions and relationships meant statisticians could deduce how many people were in same sex partnerships. However it excluded GLBT people who are not in a relationship or did not live with their partner. Saxton says, “We now have laws that don't criminalise us. The Human Rights legislation does provide formal protection. It's a much better place than it was 10-20 years ago, and there's a point at which excuses run out. That's not at all to underplay what homophobia does to people, especially for members of ethnic or religious groups that do not yet accept homosexuality as a fact of life. I have sympathy for people who don't want to come out, but if we want the State to provide services that are relevant for us we do have to tick the box that says ‘gay'.” Elsewhere in the magazine are interviews with Gay Men's Business Association Chairperson Johnny Givens, Police EEO and Diversity Manager Carol Train, former MP Fran Wilde, Rainbow Youth Adult Advisor Linda Farr, gender and women's studies researcher Prue Hyman, and Human Rights Commissioner Joy Liddicoat. Ref: NEON (m)
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 26th October 2006 - 12:00pm