Equality Tasmania has urged the State Government to accept a cross-party committee recommendation that people convicted under the state’s former laws criminalising homosexuality and cross-dressing receive financial redress of up to $75,000, saying it will be an important step towards healing for those affected.

 

Today, the State Parliament’s Gender and Equality Committee issued a report recommending those against whom action was taken under the state’s former laws prohibiting homosexuality and cross-dressing be granted $15,000 if they were charged but not convicted, $45,000 if they were convicted, and $75,000 if they were gaoled or subject to other punishments such as court-ordered conversion practices. The redress would be available automatically upon the expungement of a historic gay or cross-dressing criminal record.

 

The recommendation was endorsed by Committee members from all parties, including the governing Liberal Party, in a consensus decision. If and when the recommendation is enacted, Tasmania will become the first state to provide financial redress for historic gay convictions.

 

Equality Tasmania spokesperson, Rodney Croome, said,

 

“We praise the Committee for its compassion and urge the Government to embrace the recommendation as an important step towards healing for those who suffered under our former laws against homosexuality or cross-dressing.”

 

“People convicted under Tasmania’s former laws often lost their jobs and their families; suffered discrimination, ostracism, fines and gaol time, and endured the stigma of a criminal record for decades.”

 

“The financial redress recommended by the Gender and Equality Committee will provide some recompense for those who suffered under our former laws, send them the message the state is truly sorry for what it inflicted on them and help them heal.”

 

Tasmania was the last state to decriminalise homosexuality (in 1997) and the only state to criminalise cross-dressing (until 2000). The maximum penalty of 21 years in prison for homosexuality was the harshest in the western world.

 

In 2017, the state enacted legislation allowing those charged or convicted under the state’s former laws against homosexuality or cross-dressing to apply to have their records expunged.

 

Then Premier, Will Hodgman, apologised for the former laws and said homosexuality and cross-dressing should never have been against the law.

 

In 2020, financial redress for those who successfully applied to have their record expunged was recommended by an Independent Review.

 

The Government introduced legislation acting on all the Review’s recommendations except financial redress.

 

The Lower House supported an amendment from the Greens appointing an independent assessor to determine the amount of redress.

 

In the Upper House the Government offered up to $5000 redress and the bill was sent to the Gender and Equality committee to consider the issue.

 

The Committee rejected the Government’s proposal of up to $5000 as “manifestly inadequate”.

 

There have been no successful applications to expunge a criminal record for homosexuality or cross-dressing thus far, so it is not expected there will be many pay outs.

 

The Gender and Equality Committee's report and media statement are attached.

 

For a copy of this statement on the web, click here