Mardi Gras 2016: Sydney marchers 'building a rainbow nation' – as it happened

Another Mardi Gras parade has wrapped up – bigger, brighter and bolder than any I can remember. I think I could count all 460kg of glitter used from my front row spot. It was great to see the diversity of the queer community represented, including many floats championing the rights of transgender people.

And abs, lots of abs, if that’s your kind of thing.

I caught a glimpse of opposition leader Bill Shorten, but PM Malcolm Turnbull must’ve been watching from another part of the route. Maybe he’ll join the parade next year? Time will tell.

And how about those 78ers? They have fought for an apology for 38 years. And in the last few weeks they’ve won three: from the NSW parliament, police and the Sydney Morning Herald. They looked proud and rightly so.

The barriers have come down and crowds stream across Oxford Street. There’s a lot of confetti in the gutter and very glitzed up patrons keen to get into bars and clubs before the dreaded lockout. Try and find that cute guy, girl, person you saw parade past you.

Tonight could be your night.

Reflecting Hollywood’s current love affair with comic book heroes, there were plenty of rainbow-plastered, sequin-slathered Storm Troopers, Batwomen and Wonder Men.

The film Gayby Baby had a float this year, featuring “gayby babies” with their same-sex parents. You may remember that the gentle, non-judgemental film was given a sensational news splash by the Daily Telegraph in a spell of mostly manufactured outrage.

A few months ago I spoke to the film’s director and gayby baby herself, Maya Newell who reflected on that “horrible” week when her film made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

She said consider the national conversation that took place – “with some really horrendous things being said” – from the perspective of any child growing up in a same-sex family:

We had messages from parents with kids who had never been bullied before and were being treated really terribly at school because you’ve got some of the leaders of our country saying that their families are not welcome inside the school gates.

In saying that I think we learned that some things need to get ugly for change, or there is value in stirring things up.

More sex, sparkles and good vibes than a cheerleader shaking her pom poms from down the barrel of Guardian Australia photographer Jonny Weeks live from Mardi Gras:

Plenty of racial diversity here tonight, with floats representing Australia’s Chinese, Brazilian and Scottish communities and several Thai-themed floats, including the stunning Thailand Ladyboy Superstars.

We’ve had the main political parties’ floats and the parade is taking on more of a party atmosphere (if that’s possible) in the second half.

As dance music pumps the paraders shake what their mommas gave them, improved of course by many hours in the gym. The shirts are tight and the waists slim.

But plenty who may have skipped the gym are making up for it with glitter, pompoms and, of course, pride. Confetti has just shot into the air across Taylor Square and it spreads the love liberally and equally.

Earlier Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp spoke to Mardi Gras global ambassador Courtney Act about the country’s marriage laws that, inexplicably, still prevent same-sex couples from marrying:

I was getting ready for the Mardi Gras VIP party and I wanted to wear this cute little rainbow ring but the only finger it would fit on is my wedding ring finger which, as I know, is bad luck. Then I thought: fuck it, I’m going to wear this rainbow ring on my wedding finger until same-sex attracted people can get married in this country.

Her political career was flown out on a dodgy helicopter charter, but looks like Bronwyn Bishop has landed at the Mardi Gras:

These gorgeous, beaming, love-filled shots from Guardian Australian photographer Jonny Weeks:

For many of the original 78ers and others, at the heart of Mardi Gras is not celebration but protest. Although the LGBTIQ community in Australia has made incredible strides in terms of acceptance and equality, the fight is far from over.

Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp spoke earlier to Kieran Fitzgerald, the Rainbow Labor’s float organiser, who said: “It’s easy to think these issues are largely resolved, and marriage equality is the final frontier, but it’s not really.” Of a review of the Safe Schools program, at the behest of Cory Bernardi, he said the political consensus on LGBTI issues was “quite fragile”.

The Safe Schools program is an anti-bullying initiative for LGBTI students. Bernardi raised concerns in the Coalition party room that it “indoctrinates kids with Marxist cultural relativism” and said parts were inappropriate for young children.

And let’s remember, Bernardi is a staunch opponent of marriage equality and resigned as shadow parliamentary secretary in 2012 after making comments linking same-sex marriage and bestiality.

This little snippet with Labor MP Anthony Albanese.

Paul also reports that the Liberal float featured federal member Trent Zimmerman and NSW representative Shayne Mallard. Absent was top dog and prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – who had elected to watch as a member of the crowd instead.

Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp tells me this is the 30th time walking in the parade for current lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore. This photo from a previous Mardi Gras ... spot the real Clover:

Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has posted a photo of himself at the parade, with his wife and former lord mayor of Sydney Lucy Turnbull.

Although he’s attended plenty of times, never as prime minister. It makes this, as far as we can tell, the first time an Australian prime minister has attended the Mardi Gras.

A certain former PM was also present ... kind of.

Expect more air-kissing from Australia’s political bigwigs when the Labor and Greens floats (the former featuring opposition leader Bill Shorten) make their way down the street.

Pretty sure the rest of country is completely dry of glitter and sparkly streamer supplies right now. Organisers estimated that 460kg of glitter were used in making floats and costumes!

In 1978 at the first march, few would have dreamed that one day the Australian federal police, defence force and state emergency services would be walking in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, but I guess it’s an indication of how far we’ve come.

Got to love that Fire and Rescue NSW walked to Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire. From the Unions comes a banner declaring their love of penalty rates and chants: “We’re here, we’re loud, we’re union and we’re proud.”

The NSW Police marched too, fresh from their apology to the 78ers (although as Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp notes, no sign of Andrew Scipione, commissioner of the NSW Police Force).

Fireworks crackled over Taylor Square as the 78ers, the original Mardi Gras marchers, passed in their big red bus. A bittersweet Scrubs-style rendition of Over the Rainbow was sung by a drag performer before thumping dance beats resumed.

To learn more about the 78ers, read our story by David Marr who recounts his reporting of the fateful evening in which marchers were beaten and humiliated by police and onlookers:

In the melee of the next half an hour the demonstrators were joined by locals, drunks and a couple of bikies. The queers fought back. “Police were using fists and boots,” one of the marchers, Jeff McCarthy, told me. “Beer cans were being thrown, full ones from the back of the footpath, bottles of Spumante, shoes, at least one garbage can from each side of the road.”

There was screaming and crying. McCarthy saw a policeman kicked in the balls. “Someone was thrown half into a van, landed on his stomach on the edge of the door, then police slamming the door on his legs.”

Several witnesses confirmed that incident and widely shared was McCarthy’s impression that the police were particularly targeting women. “They seemed to make their attacks especially sexual,” McCarthy said. “Women were dragged along by the hair … One woman was grabbed by the tits. She called, ‘Let go of my tits’ and was charged with offensive language.”

Good question.

The floats have started their walks! Expect plenty of representation from Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander community tonight, including the Aboriginal Project from health organisation ACON, with their message “Unity: Stronger Together”.

Prominent Indigenous activist Mick Gooda with a big smile on this face was spotted by Paul:

Paul Karp is having a lot of fun right now.

Read our story on the male supermodel and mechanical engineering PhD who taught maths to engineering students

Dykes on Bikes have ushered us in but we’re still waiting for the official floats to start their walk from Hyde Park to Taylor Square.

And while we do, here’s an excerpt from Garry Wotherspoon’s new book Gay Sydney in which he reflects on the city’s spectacular 1983 Mardi Gras, that had a columnist in the Melbourne Age bemoan the fact that it “put Melbourne’s Moomba parade in the shade”.

A commentator described participants dressed as ‘bikies, Darth Vaders, cycle sluts, gladiators, Red Indians, Supremes, Carmen Mirandas, wizards, fairies, ballroom dancers, nuns and altar boys’ and others wearing just enough ‘to keep them out of the Darlinghurst slammer on indecent exposure charges’. After wending its way through the city and up Oxford Street, the so-called ‘glitter strip’ that included the majority of Sydney’s commercial gay venues, the parade continued along Flinders Street and Anzac Parade to the AMP Pavilion at the Sydney Showground. One of the biggest parties the city had ever seen followed. Thousands of people queued to get in to the Pavilion.

Wotherspoon’s book tells the story of gay Sydney across a century, during which the community was often forced into the shadows, until the social upheavals of the 60s and 70s.

The parade is just moments away. In the mean time, Guardian Australia photographer Jonny Weeks has submitted these fantastic images of marchers getting ready:

Guardian Australia’s Paul Karp will soon bring us his report of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek’s doorstop before their appearance on Labor’s Mardi Gras float.

It appears the No Pride in Detention protesters did not miss an opportunity to voice their opposition to the offshore detention of LGBTIQ refugees. From their Facebook page:

Mardi Gras has a long history of protest and social commentary, having come out of a 1978 rally for queer pride that was brutally shut down by police.

We believe that Mardi Gras should still be political, and that there has never been a more important time to take up social questions like racism when our queer siblings are locked up in offshore detention camps. But why is this an LGBTIQ issue, you might ask?

The major parties have enforced a policy of border control that sees LGBTIQ refugees locked into offshore detention camps where their sexuality, gender identity, and/or intersex status is often criminalised. This policy also sees those seeking asylum on the basis of fleeing a country where their identity is criminalised, cruelly turned away.

If you’re wondering how to watch the parade from home, you can watch it live (with no geoblock) through the SBS Mardi Gras broadcast homepage at: sbs.com.au/mardigras from 7pm. It will be broadcast again on SBS television, come Sunday evening at 8.30pm.

With T-15 to go, some photos have already started coming in:

On Friday NSW police apologised to the original Sydney Mardi Gras marchers for hurt and pain caused by police actions in 1978, adding to apologies from the NSW parliament and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Read more about the apology here.

They will be walking again tonight, singing the following: