NSW closer to introducing legislation extinguish historical gay sex convictions

LGBTI community leaders in NSW have welcomed news that an intention to introduce a bill enabling people to have their historical convictions for homosexual conduct extinguished was motioned in state parliament today.

Coogee state Liberal MP Bruce Notley-Smith provided the notice of his intention to introduce a Private Member’s Bill to the Legislative Assembly which, if passed, would extinguish historical convictions for consensual sex between men.

The bill would apply to convictions made before the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1984, and up until 2003 when the discriminatory age of consent — for example, when a 17-year-old gay male was liable for prosecution for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old male — ended.

The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby has stated that the move was “significant in material and symbolic terms” for those directly affected and the broader LGBTI community.

They also said the estimate number of people charged with such offences was in the hundreds, but it is also suspected that the actual number is likely to be “significantly higher”.

“In many cases where people were charged as a result of acts no longer considered criminal offences, the effects on their lives have been profound, sometimes resulting in incarceration, social alienation, the  inability to apply for specific jobs,  and,  in many instances, the  inability to travel freely overseas, as other Australians do,” NSW GLRL convenor Justin Koonin said.

ACON president Mark Orr shared similar sentiments.

“The introduction of such a bill is an important step towards righting a long standing historical injustice arising from the criminalisation of sex between men,” he said.

“The issue is important for several reasons. There are a number of individuals who, for purposes of residency or immigration elsewhere, are troubled by the obligation to report a historical conviction.

“Also, through ACON’s work with older people we know that many of these arrests and convictions produced long lasting trauma and shame for the individuals involved, which in some cases has produced long standing distrust of institutions and services, to the detriment of their wellbeing. The retrospective extinguishment of these convictions may help resolve these issues.”

Both Koonin and Orr commended Notley-Smith for taking the initiative to make his intention to introduce the bill official, and called on all NSW parliamentarians to support it.

“A commitment to equality and justice requires that we extinguish these convictions, resulting from charges that today would not be upheld in a  court of law,” Koonin said.

The news comes on the same day as the Victorian Government introducing their long-awaited legislation into state parliament to allow men with historical gay sex convictions to have them expunged.

(Photo: Ann-Marie Calilhanna; Star Observer)