Marriage equality advocate, media commentator and GP, Professor Kerryn Phelps and wife Jackie Stricker-Phelps have been named as 2013 Mother of the Year ambassadors by children’s charity Barnardos.

After being officially sworn in the day before as the state’s newest member of Parliament, Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich was warmly welcomed by his new colleagues and a packed public gallery early on Wednesday evening after delivering his maiden speech inside the bearpit.

The by-election for Sydney remains too tight to predict with a poll released this week showing there remains not a hairbreadth between Liberal Party candidate Shayne Mallard and independent Alex Greenwich.

Despite criticism from GPs, mental health professionals, politicians as well as over social media and by members of the LGBTI community, an unrepentant Jim Wallace has continued to defend comments suggesting smoking was healthier than the “gay lifestyle”.

In a little under two hours marriage equality advocates will appear at a federal parliamentary hearing on same-sex marriage being held in Sydney today to argue that Australia has a historic opportunity to become a more equal and inclusive nation.

Fourteen young LGBTIQ students from across the country will have more time to hit the books and a little less financial worry after they were named as this year’s recipients of scholarships and mentoring from The Pinnacle Foundation.

With the world’s best tennis players in Melbourne this week for the start of the year’s first grand slam tournament, fallout over the widely reported anti-gay views of the sport’s greatest ever female player Margaret Court has continued with organisers forced to distance themselves from her comments, while a leading psychologist has said that Court’s support for ‘gay conversion’ therapies was also deeply concerning.

SYDNEY: On a sunny day where it was said “all the colours of the rainbow” had turned out, over 10,000 people from all walks of life took part in what was the nation’s largest ever rally in support of marriage equality.

Marriage equality advocates have reacted angrily to the Labor Party’s decision today to back a parliamentary conscience vote on the issue, with the likes of Australian Marriage Equality convener Alex Greenwich saying that the fight will continue.