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NSW Libertarian Gemma Noiosi is challenging taxpayer-funded activist events, arguing government grants should not bankroll controversial projects or private cultural ventures.

The New South Wales Libertarians are leading the charge against “Woke grants” for activist and multicultural events.

The party is responding to a $100,000 handout given to an LGBTQ+ organisation that openly mocked Christians in a 158-year-old former Sydney church.

Christians drew attention to the funding after organisers, Heaps Gay Events (HGE), turned St John the Evangelist Church into “The Unholy Playhouse”.

After some negative publicity, the name was changed to “The Divine Playhouse”.

Despite that change, the mockery of Christians didn’t stop. Consequently, Christians peacefully protested the use of the venue.

The current owners of the church and former theatre shared protestors’ concerns, then evicted the group after issuing an “offensive trade” notice.

Challenging Taxpayer-Funded Activism

Although the “Playhouse” has a new venue, the Libertarians want the taxpayer funding stopped.

Lead candidate for the upper house, Gemma Noiosi, has called on the NSW bureaucracy to stop siphoning taxes for “pet arts projects and niche entertainment venues.”

Adding to her comments, which were published in a 23 September newsletter, Noiosi said, “Make no mistake: we are not suffering through a cost-of-living crisis; we are living through a cost-of-government crisis.

“Taxpayers across NSW are struggling to put food on the table, keep the lights on, and pay off skyrocketing mortgages.

“Yet the Minns Government somehow found $100,000 in taxpayer handouts to bankroll the controversial ‘Divine Playhouse’ pop-up.”

Noiosi added, “It is not the job of taxpayers to prop up private ventures or pop-up clubs.

“Free markets demand accountability and voluntary exchange.

“If the Divine Playhouse cannot stand on its own two feet, attract paying customers, and turn a profit without relying on government handouts, it should be shut down immediately.”

She then demanded in the email update that the NSW Minns government “stop using working families as an ATM for government waste!”

Speaking with The Daily Declaration about the Libertarian move, a fiery Noiosi explained that it “was about reasserting the importance of property rights.

“Government should not be in the business of funding activism, or creating culture.”

A Libertarian Christian Voice

True to the Libertarian policy position of limited government, Noiosi took aim at the improper use of taxes, saying that the venue “should have private sponsorship.”

“If it’s that popular,” she said, “the organisation should have no trouble with finding a sponsor.”

In other words, the sponsor shouldn’t be every taxpayer in New South Wales.

Also powering the Libertarian charge is the issue of two-tier policing and the disproportionate application of hate speech legislation across the West.

“It’s very obvious that Christianity is being increasingly demonised, and that those doing it are getting a free pass on hate speech,” she stated.

Noiosi explained that this double standard has created an “entitled activist class, who’ve been granted special rights.”

“They’re arrogant because they know activist politicians will give them a safety net to ensure their activism doesn’t die.”

A professional singer, wife and homeschooling mum, Noiosi said she’s “a solid advocate for parental rights who believes that parents should not be outsourcing the raising of their children to government institutions.”

Sharing about her Christian faith, she recalled a Catholic upbringing.

Although Noiosi drifted away from God in her twenties, she described being “gripped by the Gospel in a Baptist church.”

“This was like hearing about the saving grace of Jesus Christ for the first time.”

Also pro-life, she has worked with Dr Joanna Howe. Noiosi’s most recent collaboration was singing Amazing Grace at Howe’s March for Life rally in Sydney.

As president of the pro-life Libertarian platform Libertarians for Life, she’s just started a podcast with John Ruddick called Echidna vs. The State.

An Election 2027 hopeful, Noiosi told The Daily Declaration that she won the NSW Libertarian preselection plebiscite in 2025.

Noiosi, an obvious force to be reckoned with, hopes to join John Ruddick MLC in the NSW Legislative Council.