This year, we have seen major breakthroughs not only throughout Australia, but the world. With rallies focused on racial and gender equality, now is not the time to stop climbing the wall into a new age world of acceptance and understanding to land back into an area of oppression and judgement. Just when you think the twist and turns of discrimination was over, someone goes live on radio and brings it all back up again.

Basil Zempalis, also recently known as The Lord Mayor of Perth announced live on his 6PR breakfast radio show ‘if you have a penis, you are a man’ Upsetting a large portion of the Perth community, specialising in members of the LGBTQ+ family. The news comes shortly after the announcement of the first ever LGBTQ+ boxing tournament rumoured to be hosted in Sydney in 2023. However, this isn’t the first time the Lord Mayor himself has come out and offended a large portion of his state and country - just a month ago, he also announced that he would ‘forcibly remove’ homeless people from the streets of the CBD.

Only weeks after getting inducted as the Lord Mayor of Perth, Zempalis is now not only under fire from every angle for his bigotry comments made on the morning show, but also for then offering a $100 retrovision voucher to any Transgender radio listener to share their thoughts - so not only did he offend a large portion of the 6PR’s listeners he then also chose to take it a step further by patronising them for a quick cash fix.

Transfolk Chairman Hunter Gurevich weighed into this situation by stating he has no intention of accepting any apologise from the Lord Mayor himself until the Breakfast show host ‘confronts the damage his comments can and have done’ 6PR have announced, that while he was contracted to their station during the broadcast, the company have also decided to begin distancing themselves from Zempalis and announcing also that their employees are are regularly trained to ensure community standards and expectations are met at all times.

Since the show, Basil Zempalis has spoken to well known Perth LGBTQ+ news site stating ‘if anyone was offended that was not our intention’ The statistics of the Transgender deaths this year is more than 30, ranking the largest this year the deadliest one their community has seen.

So now it begs the question - What can broadcasting companies further put in place to ensure their hosts know the guidelines and community expectations that are needed to be met during a live show?