Sydney Mardi Gras 2025 as it happened: Thousands line Oxford Street to celebrate city’s LGBTQ community​on March 1, 2025 at 12:17 pm

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is marching in the Mardi Gras for the second time since he took on the country’s top job, days before he’s likely to call an election sending Australians to the polls.

“We need to respect everyone for who they are. This is a great celebration, but it also began as a political protest, when being gay or lesbian, your identity, could be a crime here in NSW,” he said.

“We’ve come a long way, but there’s still further to go, and we need to make every Australian feel safe,” he said.

Albanese made history in 2023 when he became the first Australian prime minister to march.

He told the ABC on Saturday night he’d been marching in the parade for the past 40 years.

“It’s fun, it’s a celebration, and it shows a commitment to respect people for who they are.”

Albanese has also fuelled speculation pop star Kylie Minogue could make an appearance later tonight. Asked who was on his post-parade playlist, Albanese, who is a famous music fan, said:

“Obviously Kylie, who’s playing out at Homebush. There’s got to be some chance she’ll turn up here later on, hasn’t there? We’ll see.”

We’re slightly more than an hour into the parade. The heaving crowd is still growing and a thick layer of confetti is building up underfoot.

There have been some longer pauses between floats in the parade tonight, which has left some scratching their heads. However, as soon as the next float arrives the mood rises again.

Among more than 180 floats there has been a bevy of colourful costumes and dances on display, and some unifying features throughout the night.

Sky-high heels, perhaps inspired by the Australian cult classic film Priscilla Queen of the Desert have been spotted on participants on the Queer and Gender Divers Pole Dancers, Sex Workers and Community, and the History Trust of South Australia floats.

There has also been a clear favourite when it comes to music choice. American artist Chappell Roan has been blasting out of the speakers of almost every float that passes. Roan topped the 2024 Triple J Hottest 100 with her soaring falsetto pop blockbuster Good Luck, Babe! in January.

Forget Mr Whippy, it’s time for Mx Kicky, the gender-inclusive theme of the Emerald City Kickball league’s float for this year.

The sport, which director Emma Corbridge describes as a mix of dodgeball, soccer and baseball, has become increasingly popular in the queer community recently, inspiring the creation of a float.

This year’s is inspired by childhood nostalgia, and participants have dressed as cupcakes, and Golden Gaytime and Bubble O’Bill ice creams.

“For kids that grew up in Australia when you hear the Mr Whippy song it was always a joyful moment…the joy that is sparked from that, is the same joy we spark with kickball, so that’s where the theme came from,” Corbridge said.

Marching alongside their very own ice-cream truck, 80 members of the kickball league will be holding puppets dressed as famous ice-creams — including, of course, Golden Gaytimes — which they will donate, alongside their costumes, to local schools.

Corbridge said that “for a lot of queer people, sport has not been a very friendly or inclusive space,” and that the league helped LGBTQIA+ people come together and feel accepted.

Player Jamarr Mills said that once they reach the end of the parade route there will be some tears, and that the marchers will “have a moment of togetherness and community” before breaking off to celebrate the end of the Mardi Gras festival.

The childless cat ladies have arrived in pink satin robes to deliver a message to United States Vice President J.D. Vance: They are powerful – not miserable – and they are not going anywhere.

The Itty Bitty Titty Committee is marking its 20th year in the parade, marching to the theme of “Childless Cat Ladies” and carrying a banner bearing the slogan “Paws off our pussies”.

Vance went viral during the US election campaign when he derided prominent female Democrats as “childless cat ladies”. The remarks sparked a global backlash, including from celebrities Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston.

Jane O’Keeffe, 56, said the group had decided to reclaim the tired, sexist trope for this year’s float.

“My wife and I are childless cat ladies. He called us miserable. Do we look miserable?

“We are not miserable. Do you know who’s miserable? White men who are billionaires who still need more power.”

The group’s banner refers to Trump’s notorious “grab [women] by the pussy” quote.

Chez Ritz, 71, is marching in her 41st parade tonight, and hopes to send a strong missive to Trump and Vance on behalf of the global sisterhood:

“We’re here and we’re not going away. It’s not just us lesbians, there are millions, and millions, and millions of women who are powerful.”

“It’s resonating throughout.”

Trump restricted some LGBTQ rights in his first term in office, while Vance has attempted to roll back the rights of transgender citizens.

Shimmering and spectacular, the Asian Marching Boys and Friends have opted for a “Diamonds and Pearls” theme.

Lead organiser, Phu Nguyen, has been involved in the parade since before there was formalised Asian representation, and said having a float to represent the Asian community was important.

“I just don’t want people to forget the presence of, or how important Asian people are in the gay community,” said Nguyen, who felt that his community was treated as an “underclass” in the past.

“There was a lot of hate…there was a lot of racism back then. I felt it was really important to have a presence, and for people to see that we can be anything we want to.”

Zag Kiattisak Phimsorn went online to find parade groups to join, and after seeing “amazing” pictures of previous Asian Marching Boys and Friends floats he knew he had to join.

This year is particularly significant for the Thai community as it is the first Mardi Gras since marriage equality was legalised in the country.

Phimsorn, who grew up in a conservative family in Chiang Mai, said: “Our life is short, you have to represent who you are, you do not hide yourself.

“Just come out. Just represent who you are, do the right thing, be a good person.”

The City of Sydney Council contingent is marching under the banner “Not a Fan of Book Bans”, after another council sparked outrage when it briefly banned a children’s book about same-sex parents.

The council marchers were followed by Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who has held the council’s top job since 2004, and Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, waving to crowds from the back of a Lexus convertible.

Greenwich is wearing a shirt that reads “Protect Trans Kids”. The pair received a huge cheer from the crowd.

Last year, Cumberland Council faced national and global headlines and outrage from across the political spectrum for banning Same-Sex Parents by Holly Duhig from libraries across the area.

The book was part of a series depicting diverse family structures for a younger audience, and featured two men and a child on the front cover.

The ban was overturned after hours of fiery debate at a meeting in May last year.

Lance Mumby, 67, had a “sliding doors” moment when a participant in Sydney’s first-ever Mardi Gras parade coaxed him out of an Oxford Street bar with a rousing call to action nearly five decades ago.

“They said, out of the bars, and into the streets. So we joined them.

“That’s how I became involved, and I’ve been involved ever since. You could call me an accidental activist.”

He’s among the 78ers, a group of LGBT activists who marched in the original Sydney Mardi Gras on June 24, 1978, and participated in the protests against police violence and arrests at the event.

The group was among the first floats which have just passed through Taylor Square on a big bus.

Mumby said the atmosphere was “euphoric” along Oxford Street during that first parade in 1978, but “things dramatically changed when we got to Kings Cross. A lot of people were arrested.

“I was lucky I was out, but it was a very scary night, and it affected me for years. It was a different time, that’s all I can say. I worked for a bank, and had I been seen, I would have been sacked.

“I was scared for days after.”

Mumby welcomed the fact that more LGBTQ people now felt “free to be”, but he urged the community to remember the parade had originated in protest.

“We just have to be mindful of what happened at the start, and why we’re all here,” he said.

Karl Zlotkowski, 69, said the group would be carrying a sign bearing the words “Out of the bars, and into the streets” to encourage others to be out and proud.

“We’re not afraid anymore,” he said.

The first floats have started to make their way down crowd-lined Oxford Street, led by the First Nations Community Float carrying bedazzled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.

Behind them is the LaPa Legends, a first-time float of LGBTQ community members and their allies, who have links to the Aboriginal population of La Perouse in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

Controversial Senator Lidia Thorpe has joined them, carrying a sign that reads “Not My King” and holding a raised fist.

We’ve also seen the Sisters of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence carrying signs thanking the government for queer people’s inclusion in next year’s Australian census.

Let’s get this party started, Sydney.

The Dykes on Bikes and Boys on Bikes are rumbling up Oxford Street, taking their traditional place at the front of the parade.

It’s all horns, revving engines and the sweet smell of petrol as the crowd cheers them on.

You can tell the audience knows what their arrival signifies, and the excitement levels from the crowd has risen dramatically.

Riding her Ducati – or as she calls it, her “Italian stallion” – is president Kendall Walton, who told us the motorists lead the pack for both symbolic and technical reasons.

“Back in the late 80s and early 90s, when there were a lot of homophobic attacks in Sydney, Dykes on Bikes patrolled the streets and did what they could to protect the gay community … the significance is that we ride first to create a safe space for the rest of the parade, and also … our bikes would overheat if we were riding behind everyone marching.”

Walton, who has participated in the parade nine times, said it “never gets old”. She still gets “the same excited feeling as the first time I rode in the parade as a very new rider: Goosebumps, can’t stop smiling, happy tears in my eyes. It’s still a thrill.”

This year’s group has about 140 riders, with friends and partners holding on to their loved ones as they clear the route for nearly 200 floats that are to follow in the next few hours.

Here we go!

She’s a gay icon who just happens to be on tour in her home country the week of Mardi Gras.

Singer Kylie Minogue’s presence in Sydney for her Tension Tour has sent the rumour mill into overdrive this week, and speculation has tonight reached fever pitch.

Could the Princess of Pop make a surprise appearance on a night like this? We should be so lucky.

Pure logistics, however, could foil a potential performance. Minogue’s own concert at Qudos Bank Arena at Sydney Olympic Park – nearly 30 minutes from Oxford Street – starts at 7.30pm tonight.

And yet, we just can’t get the prospect of a possible performance from our Kylie out of our heads.

The thought has our minds spinning around, and our hearts beating, padam, padam…

Rumours have also been rife that Grammy-winning pop star Troy Sivan, 29, fresh from launching his new fragrance in Sydney earlier this week, will perform.

This seems to be a surer bet, given Sivan was spotted at tonight’s after-party venue earlier today.