Last chance to make a submission to the NSW LGBTI hate crime inquiry
Image: NSW Parliament House (Photo: Ann-Marie Calilhanna; Star Observer)
It’s your last chance to make a submission to the New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into LGBTI hate crimes with submissions closing on Wednesday November 7.
The inquiry was announced in September to investigate LGBTI hate crimes which took place between 1970 and 2010.
There remain 30 outstanding cases on top of at least 88 murders of gay and transgender people during the period.
The inquiry follows reports published by both ACON and NSW Police which looked into motivations and circumstances surrounding the crimes.
Advocates took issue with the NSW Police’s Operation Parrabell report, which the NSW Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby’s Lauren Foy said “ducked any obligation they had to assess the role of police bias in the often woeful response to these crimes due to widespread social prejudice against LGBTI people.”
The parliamentary inquiry was in part established to explore whether the nature of the NSW criminal justice system impacted the protection of LGBTI people in NSW and affected the delivery of justice to victims and their families, and whether any issues have since been remedied, as well as the significance of the now-defunct ‘gay panic’ defence.
ACON have compiled a list of guidelines for creating your submission and various organisations, including the Human Rights Law Centre, Dowson Turco Lawyers, ACON and the GLRL are offering assistance with submissions.
The inquiry will hold hearings throughout the rest of November to hear in-person evidence from victims, with a report from the committee following the inquiry due in early 2019.
The report will then be tabled in parliament and then passed on to the NSW government, which will deliver a response and publish the report online.
Submissions can be lodged on the NSW government website by clicking here.
