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[00:00:05] Hi, I'm Peter, the
[00:00:14] gala. And I think I really enjoyed it was so nice to have a nice happy match here.
[00:00:22] Compared to what we did.
[00:00:25] Yeah, what was it like 30 years ago? Oh,
[00:00:29] it was horrifying. Going up Queen Street and often we used to live in Oakland.
[00:00:37] A lot of you know, all blocks we got from the
[00:00:40] so called straight community.
[00:00:45] Much better now, of course,
[00:00:46] but you don't feel intimidation back then.
[00:00:51] Now I love it. I just love it. What I see here today, yes.
[00:00:57] What's the thing that stands out for you the most?
[00:01:01] Just all the people the acceptance, and
[00:01:05] I think it's
[00:01:06] just fabulous nowadays.
[00:01:11] You know, just
[00:01:13] years ago, we lived in Auckland, we were harassed on our own home and
[00:01:19] realized lot of things thrown at us. was so shocking. But Tom,
[00:01:25] you carry on peace.
[00:01:28] To to Laura, for me, you know, obviously, prior to
[00:01:33] prior reforms,
[00:01:35] say you couldn't really do anything cuz you were doing something illegal, basically. But I think the police were pretty understanding anyway. But we had to get over that.
[00:01:51] I think when I was thinking about 30
[00:01:53] years ago, from walking and matching in Queens, three, there was a lot of hostile abuse, but nothing as bad as what we experienced at Parliament when the civil union and Bill was going through. And we had to pace up the destiny church, they were just very layered on all. So it's really nice to be here and feel free and see all the young people are never going to go through what we went through.
[00:02:24] And they happy faces.
[00:02:26] Yes. It's amazing to think about that. For a lot of people under 30. It's very hard to kind of comprehend what what that was like. Yes, yes, I'm all agree.
[00:02:41] When I came out at the age of
[00:02:43] 12, that was in about 1967 was both
[00:02:50] very hard at school
[00:02:52] difficult. All through those years. I was
[00:02:57] I was on the cold and I'm very bad at the corner notion and but theory like have been our main cells, teased a lot at school. And I find in school, six figure incomes also rest so much. So
[00:03:12] from then on, I've written to sort of a 17 year of fifth year
[00:03:15] which ended.
[00:03:18] And then in 1990, I met
[00:03:19] Peter.
[00:03:21] And we've been together ever since. And we both had a civil unions seven years ago.
[00:03:32] And we're great. We're great.
[00:03:35] We wonder if we should get actually married, so to speak about?
[00:03:41] We thought perhaps not. Some of us just as good I think. I don't think we're going to adopt kids or anything. Oh, children, I should say not kids.
[00:03:51] Just pee. So
[00:03:54] how many hits Have you got this one fat, who was
[00:04:00] a abandoned, abused cat.
[00:04:03] So she
[00:04:04] took a while to decide she would exit us but she definitely wanted to live on the
[00:04:11] property.
[00:04:13] So first thing she did was jump on his knee. And she's been leaning ever since.
[00:04:19] It's very sweet. What's in a
[00:04:21] little girl. We didn't know whether she had another nine. So we're just calling it the little girl and she got used to it. So she's a little girl. So that's our child. But over the years, I think we've been mean to a lot of young people coming through. And I guess the some still experienced some of the things that we did. That's not totally clear of the woods yet. But that sort of thing is still bashing some things goes on. But by and large, it's much safer for gay people than it was before.
[00:04:56] What do you think some of the issues are nowadays facing kind of rainbow communities?
[00:05:03] I think there's a lot of still a lot of bigotry. And
[00:05:10] people
[00:05:11] who have fears about themselves and sort of us bullying other people who are scared or try and intimidate others and do things and I think those people so they have to be each to be comfortable who they are. I think it probably takes generations and generations for really clear up. What happened in the last 30 years is good. And you know, maybe the next 10 or 20 years will be slightly good.
[00:05:43] And I want to ask you in 30 years time what would be your kind of ideal world what what
[00:05:47] just to be together and happy gin and tonic by the pool and the risk
[00:05:58] with some nice guy. This is to look after us.
[00:06:02] I mentioned that must be quite I mean, that isn't it wasn't a kind of aging
[00:06:05] is that would happen. I had my mother in a rich time and I had this No way. I would be there slack this a few a little bit. Definitely I'm sure anything. It would be awful. I suppose things will change in that way. And they'll be you know,
[00:06:27] good places for elder guys guy.
[00:06:32] And I'm sure gay community people are very supportive of their own. So that will be good. I wouldn't have liked to be a resident. Okay resident on the rich time. So yeah, that's the next big thing because there's a lot of us aging gay people. And really, you know, in the next 1020 years will all be headed in that direction. So in nice, safe environment where we can be happy and accept the ourselves.