My name is Keenan Smith and I am a Wirangu, Mirning and Kokatha person from the far west coast of South Australia. I identify as gay and non-binary, and I use they/them pronouns. I am the recipient of the 2021 South Australian NAIDOC LGBTQIA+ Person of the Year.

After winning the LGBTQIA+ Person of the Year, I was curious to see if this award was a category at the national NAIDOC awards, or if other state and territories awarded this also. After researching further, I found that nationally there wasn’t an LGBTQIA+ award, and that only South Australia and Victoria offered this award currently. In South Australia this is the third year that this award has been offered and I am honoured to have won it.

The absence of this as a category at the national awards, fails to genuinely represent the diversity of our communities across the states and territories. Also that in a majority of our communities nationally, there are always going to be people like myself that identify as LGBTQIA+. Not only does our First Nations LGBTQIA+ community face discrimination from the wider community, but we also face it within the LGBTQIA+ community.  We need representation, we need recognition, we need role models, we need our achievements reflected on this platform, and our community deserves to have our efforts and work awarded.

I have started this petition to urge the NAIDOC National Committee, to create a national award for the LGBTQIA+ Person of the Year Award at the next National NAIDOC Awards Ceremony in 2022. I have sent the committee two emails over the past 3 months and no response, and I understand that COVID-19 has delayed the awards ceremony for both 2020 and 2021. But this category is long overdue and the national committee have an opportunity now to include this and lead by example, so that other states and territories may follow.