The secret reason behind Mardi Gras move to ban NSW police

It seems probable that the annual epicentre for LGBTIQA+ pride, Sydney’s Mardi Gras, is about to terminate its long-standing invitation to police. A bitter debate exploded into the mainstream earlier in the year. This Saturday, Mardi Gras members will gather for the AGM and consider a total police ban.

Who is and isn’t marching in a pride parade might seem a little marginal to justify this controversy, so why has the idea captured such attention?

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb (centre) marches with colleagues in the 2023 Mardi Gras parade.Credit: AP / Mark Baker

The Mardi Gras was born in police brutality, our queer history interwoven with police oppression. But even more motivating for many, is that exclusion of any person or group goes to the heart of disagreements on how to win outcomes for equality. These are strategic questions about allies, priorities and pressure. They connect to efforts to address suffering endured by people known to us. To make even a small political misjudgment is personal.

Recent high-profile scandals involving NSW Police have hidden an unrelated agenda that sits behind this saga. Secretive and adversarial behaviour in dealing with an inquiry into gay-hate crimes, misconduct and revelations of a toxic culture have resulted in headlines and an external review. But bad police behaviour is not why this debate started. For queer people, it’s nothing new or surprising. Police have been a menace to many minority groups since colonisation.

Like many peers, I have a deep distrust of police going back to my teens. Living in Sydney’s Kings Cross during the tail end of its sequined grimy heyday, I never had to look far to find evidence of intimidation and discrimination – often on display in quite brazen ways. Still today, police don’t make me feel safe. For many others, their current reality, and past experiences, are far worse.

Despite all this, and in fact because of it, Mardi Gras has, for decades, actively welcomed police. Seeing them in the parade as a young person told me that not all coppers were homophobic. In return, those queer police had my solidarity in their efforts to bring change. They still do.

The push to exclude people is instead explained by a little-discussed political phenomenon which has emerged in Sydney’s vibrant radical activist scene. It’s got little to do with police.

NSW Police march in the 2001 Mardi Gras parade.

I was first alerted to this soon after the marriage equality win when the Mardi Gras became the scene for a new ritual self-flagellation for Sydney queers. Complaints spread: a new activist collective called Pride in Protest turned up with a long list of motions. I scrolled the group’s social media. Some things inspired bewilderment, but I figured it was mostly harmless: just some radical queers who want to rock the boat and speak aggressively. They were welcome, just like queer police and allies.

Fast-forward a few years and the motion grind is more exhausting and repetitive. There’s been spicy proposals on various topics, with a particular focus on rejecting sponsors, excluding police and politicians.

What’s different in 2024 is that the police-ban idea has gained momentum. Understandably, many came to associate it with one of the most horrific police disgraces of our time: the murders of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, alleged domestic violence-related homicides by serving police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon.

Pride in Protest’s calls for a police ban now appeared to be an emergency response to an extraordinary event. Mardi Gras grappled with wildly different views and did a double-pike-backflip. The community consultation that followed was an organising opportunity for Pride in Protest.

We can understand the motivation better after a quick sojourn back to 1930s Europe, where some activist forebears helped define the strategy. The “French Turn” was a series of political disruptions caused by Leon Trotsky and his loyalists, who joined and organised within larger socialist parties to influence their direction towards more revolutionary ideas. It was also known as “entryism”.

The Marxist struggle lives on in Sydney’s rainbow community, just as it does around the fringes of the left all over the world. Previously, this was Community Action Against Homophobia – a classic red vanguard outfit with an earnest but sweet vibe which organised many protests. No one cared that they were insufferable with a microphone. They were good people, fighting the good fight and helping to increase visibility.

Something shifted. Close observers soon understood that the new group considered other less radical queers the enemy. Entryism was the chosen strategy. It has campaigned for Mardi Gras to be something different ever since.

Pride in Protest organised voting tickets for board elections and recruited loyalists to its membership. After a failed attempt or two, they managed to elect some people. It seems like a lot of effort. Can’t folks just do more radical stuff themselves? An alternative edgy pride event sounds sweet to me.

But the effort is not designed to get motions carried, it’s a takeover.

What matters most in entryism is the slow, gradual breaking down of the existing culture and people to the point that the organisation can be controlled. The motions are simply a means to an end, a tactic to wear people down, and frankly, to get them to give up and quit.

The motions are chosen to be topical and to tap into issues that members already care about, but to push hard enough to create conflict. They aim to set up a harsh binary: principled or not principled.

Different people can pursue different approaches to activism and join forces when priorities align, but if this entryism takeover is successful, the current Mardi Gras ethos will be diminished.

The Mardi Gras way is to build bridges. It invites everyone, wherever they may be in their own journey of self-discovery or acceptance of others, to join in a celebration of equality and diversity.

In 1998, just 20 years on from the police brutality that defined the first Mardi Gras, a few police joined the parade. In doing so, they joined the fightback. Original 1978 marchers led the parade, many of whom had been bashed, arrested and shamed. Those police delivered a symbolic gesture of respect. Their banner read: “We’re here because we care”.

Since then, we’ve seen an apology, increased co-operation with accords and agreements and a decrease in day-to-day discrimination. Some people’s experiences don’t align with that. No one is suggesting we give the institution a rainbow medal. But are we really to believe that it was a good thing for police to march in 1998, and a bad thing now?

The inclusive approach has also been a pillar of the broader equality movement, which has delivered progress faster than any other. It’s been successful through alliances. It works because it doesn’t attack people. We listen, understand the barriers, and use that knowledge to take people forward.

The police-ban proposal has no strategy. It is a tactic for the unrelated objectives of those who have proposed it – over and over again.

After the French Turn, the 1930s Trotskyists failed miserably in everything else they ever did. Their entryism successes came just in time for Western Europe to fall to fascism, while genuine democratic socialists bickered among themselves.

Pride in Protest, however, gets an A+ for effort in its attempts to take over the Mardi Gras. It looks set to get a little win with its motion about police: wearing down a few members and giving a huge up-you to all the homophobic coppers out there who … won’t even notice.

Peter Stahel is a public affairs consultant and political adviser. He is an ordinary member of Mardi Gras.