Damien Nguyen, a member of the activist group Pride in Protest, has been elected to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras board, securing a second seat for the group on the eight-member board and expanding its influence within the membership-based not-for-profit organisation.
The group’s strengthened representation follows this year’s board elections – the votes of which were tallied on Monday night – and comes after its unsuccessful attempt at last Saturday’s annual general meeting to pass a motion calling for NSW Police to be indefinitely banned from the annual Mardi Gras parade.
Despite the defeat, Pride in Protest’s increased presence on the board positions it to exert greater influence over the organisation’s future direction.
With two board members, the group now has the authority to call an extraordinary general meeting outside the standard annual cycle. This could allow them to revisit the contentious issue of police exclusion ahead of next year’s Mardi Gras festival — an option Nguyen told Gay Sydney News he would not rule out.
According to Pride in Protest, Nguyen received the highest number of first-preference votes, securing 371 of the 1190 votes cast. A quota of 239 votes was required to win outright on primary votes.
On Monday night, Sydney Mardi Gras disclosed who had been elected to the board and the total number of votes cast, while Pride in Protest shared first-preference vote counts to its Instagram account.
Rainbow Labor NSW co-convener Daniel Mitsuru Delisle was also elected to the board, while Brandon Bear was re-elected. Brad Booth completes the four new additions to the board.
Delisle received the second-highest number of first-preference votes, with 289, while Booth and Bear, who secured 188 and 174 respectively, were both elected through the distribution of preferences.
Quay-Quay Quade, another Pride in Protest director candidate, came close to securing a board position but was ultimately eliminated in the preference distributions, finishing fifth, just behind Bear.
The four newly elected directors join Kathy Pavlich, Louis Hudson, Kyriakos Gold and Pride in Protest’s Luc Velez on the board. Mardi Gras directors Melanie Schwerdt and Alice Anderson have retired after serving their two-year terms.
Out of the eight board members from now on, seven identify with he/him pronouns.
Speaking to Gay Sydney News on Monday night, Nguyen did not rule out calling an extraordinary general meeting before the upcoming Mardi Gras festival to again force a vote on banning police from the parade.
Mardi Gras’ constitution permits a general meeting to be convened under any of the following circumstances: if requested by at least two directors, at least five per cent of voting members, the board collectively, or the company secretary in specific circumstances.
As demonstrated at the annual general meeting, Pride in Protest appears to have more than 400 Mardi Gras members voting in favour of its motions, which is more than enough support (10 per cent) for calling a meeting at any time. As of June 30, there were 3761 Mardi Gras members.
“The escalation of calling an extraordinary general meeting is one that obviously would require the escalation of the campaign [to ban police], the demands by the community,” he said.
“So when that is the case, yeah, If that’s the sensible … [if] that’s for these community demands, and if there is community desire for this method, we will do so.”
Nguyen noted that at Saturday’s Mardi Gras annual general meeting, the margin between Mardi Gras members wanting police in versus out of the parade was 34 votes, which he said was “extremely” small.
At the meeting, a Mardi Gras motion by the board that called for NSW Police to be excluded from marching “until such time as they demonstrate a commitment to improving relationships with LGBTQIA+ communities” was narrowly defeated by 493 votes to 459 with 26 abstentions.
A separate motion from Pride in Protest that sought to indefinitely ban NSW Police from marching in the parade was also voted down, with 425 votes in favour, 522 against, and 29 abstentions.
Another motion from Rainbow Labor NSW’s Delisle, which proposed limiting the police’s participation in the parade to LGBTQIA+ officers only, and would have prevented them from wearing their official uniforms or carrying weapons, was voted down 482 to 419 with 36 abstentions.
“That means that [the] community is clearly divided on the issue,” Nguyen said.
“And so from now until [next Mardi Gras] it’s a matter of ‘when’ the cops will be out [of the parade], not ‘if’ the cops will be out – whether it’s next Mardi Gras or the one after.”
A queer activist for sex workers and migrants’ rights, Nguyen was previously the queer officer of the National Union of Students.
According to his application to become a director, he said a vote for him was “a vote for opposing pink-washing, for cops out of Mardi Gras, for reclaiming pride, and for divestment from genocide”.
Rainbow Labor NSW co-convener and incoming board member Daniel Mitsuru Delisle told Gay Sydney News he was “grateful and humbled” to have been elected to serve the LGBTQIA+ community “and to support the Mardi Gras we all love”.
“I congratulate the other successful candidates and extend my thanks and respect to those who weren’t elected this time around,” he said via text message.
Delisle did not directly respond to a question asking if he would resist a push to ban police from the parade should Pride in Protest force members into an extraordinary general meeting to vote on the topic.
“As I’ve always said, Mardi Gras faces big challenges ahead and as a community, we’ve always done best when we face those challenges together,” he said.
Re-elected director Brandon Bear said it was “humbling and an honour to be able to serve the members for another term, though bittersweet to … see some truly fantastic female candidates not be elected”.
He declined the opportunity to state his position on whether police should participate in the Mardi Gras parade, instead saying that it was “the board’s role … to continue to work with [the] community and the [Mardi Gras] operations team together to find a way forward”.
“There is a new make-up of the board who have very different opinions on the presence of police in the parade and we need to meet and work together to make decisions on issues that affect so many people,” he said, noting that he was speaking “as a candidate and member – not a director”.
As the former co-chair of the board who served on the audit and risk committee, as well as the people and nominations committee, Bear addressed the annual general meeting on Saturday where he reflected on Mardi Gras’ $1.2 million deficit last financial year.
Asked how he plans to restore the organisation to a healthy financial position, he told Gay Sydney News the board and leadership “have already been working hard to secure better results and increase the reserves”.
“The new board will have to take on board the concerns of members and I plan to do that when we begin to meet,” he said.
Bear is the head of inclusion, diversity and equality at St Vincent’s Health. Before this, he managed the research and strategy division at LGBTQIA+ health organisation ACON.
Booth, who previously served as a board director for Queerscreen and has held executive roles in other organisations like Graincorp and Charles Sturt University, was contacted for comment but did not respond by deadline.
In his candidate’s statement, Booth said he had been a participant in Mardi Gras events for more than 20 years and that if elected he looked forward to “applying my board director skills and experience, to continue to serve our LGBTQIA+ community”.
Liz Dods, a long-time Mardi Gras contributor since 1993 and former board director, congratulated three of the newly elected candidates by name while referring to the fourth as “a Pride in Protest candidate”.
However, she expressed disappointment with the gender balance of the new board.
“Unfortunately no women were elected. This leaves only ONE woman on the Board,” she said on Facebook, referencing existing director Kathy Pavlich.
Editor’s note: Journalist Ben Grubb pays $50 annually for Mardi Gras memberships to access discounts at retail stores and bars but doesn’t use the membership’s voting rights.
Gay Sydney News editor