Victoria to Explore Reparations for LGBTQ+ Hate Crimes in Landmark Study

Victoria is taking its first formal steps toward acknowledging the state’s history of anti-LGBTQIA+ violence and hate crimes, with a new RMIT University research project set to examine how justice and healing might finally be achieved for survivors and their loved ones.

The study, led by Dr Jeremie Bracka from RMIT’s School of Law, will investigate pathways for reparations, renewed attention to unsolved cases, and official recognition of policing failures that left countless LGBTIQA+ Victorians without answers or justice.

Described as the first transitional-justice initiative of its kind in Victoria, the research aims to translate years of community advocacy into concrete legal and social reform — drawing inspiration from work already under way in other jurisdictions, such as the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes and Tasmania’s expungement and compensation schemes.

“Across Australia, we’re still coming to terms with the human rights abuses that queer people have endured,” Dr Bracka said.

“We’ve seen meaningful progress interstate, but Victoria has been slower to confront its own history. This project is about shining light on that silence — and building a response grounded in truth, accountability and safety.”

Roundtable on historic LGBTIQ+ hate crimes in Victoria

A roundtable in November will bring together people with lived experience, community advocates, legal experts and government representatives to shape the research outcomes.

The discussion will be co-hosted with Victoria’s Commissioner for LGBTIQA+ Communities Joe Ball, who has long championed policy reforms that centre queer voices, and is also soon to deliver the 2025 Higinbotham Lecture.

RMIT says the project will inform both historical reckoning and forward-looking legal change, helping to design a “tailored Victorian response” to decades of injustice.

Dr Bracka said the university’s law school “has a role to play in leading the difficult conversations — and transforming them into action that protects our communities today”.

The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes

The RMIT initiative follows the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes, which investigated more than 30 years of homophobic and transphobic violence across New South Wales.

That inquiry exposed deep institutional failures and long-neglected cases, finding that police and state authorities routinely dismissed or mishandled investigations into the deaths and assaults of queer people between 1970 and 2010.

Its final report prompted a historic apology from the NSW Government in 2024, acknowledging that LGBTQIA+ communities were not only abandoned by the justice system but often further traumatised by it.

Survivors and advocates hailed the apology as a crucial milestone — but stressed that true justice will require ongoing reparations, memorials, and renewed efforts to solve cold cases.

“We 78ers who survive have always known that that gay, lesbian, trans and gender diverse people are vulnerable and at risk of violence,” Mark Gillespie, Graham Chuck and Peter Murphy wrote for Star Observer at the time of the apology. “Though understandable it is sad that many of us have learned to fear not to trust the blue and now oft-times black police uniforms we see in our communities.

“The Sackar Report offers an ideal opportunity for genuine change. We will support every genuine effort by both the NSW Government and the NSW Police Force to make these changes but re-confirm the need to hold to account any person, police officer or government official found to have contributed to LGBTIQ+ hate crimes or who acts to block this welcome change process.”