Tasmania is first in Australia to compensate gay men convicted over sexuality

MELBOURNE – For the men who were convicted under the now-repealed anti-homosexuality laws in Tasmania, its recent move to legislate financial reparations could not have come too soon.

Homosexuality was decriminalised in Tasmania in 1997, making it the last Australian state to do so – more than two decades after South Australia became the first. However, men remained banned from cross-dressing in public until 2001.

On Dec 3, the smallest state in the country became the first to make available reparations for men who were charged with or convicted of historical homosexuality and cross-dressing offences. 

The government compensation ranges from A$15,000 (S$12,900) for the men who were only charged, to A$75,000 for those who were convicted and served prison sentences – after they have applied for the charges and convictions to be expunged. It also covers those who were subjected to “aversion” or “conversion” therapies.

Advocacy group Equality Tasmania says around 100 men were charged or convicted under the former homosexuality laws. The number of those eligible for compensation is likely to be higher with the inclusion of men who were prosecuted for cross-dressing.

“The laws were wrong and we need to admit the mistake,” said Dr Paula Gerber, professor of human rights law at Monash University, who advised the Tasmanian parliamentary committee that set the compensation rates.

Dr Gerber examined past Australian government payouts for wrongful convictions and the outcomes of personal injury and medical negligence cases.

She also looked at redress schemes for past convictions relating to homosexuality in other countries, including Germany and Canada.

“The redress scheme is more than a tokenistic response to the wrong, so the amounts needed to genuinely recognise the harm that had been done to individuals,” she said.

“Some form of truth-telling and listening would also be helpful to capture these people’s history and stories.”

Mr Rodney Croome, a long-time advocate for LGBTQ rights who is now a spokesman for Equality Tasmania, also wants the survivors’ personal stories to be heard.

“Many of them lost their jobs and were financially disadvantaged,” Mr Croome said. “In addition to being publicly outed because their court cases were covered in the newspaper, they were often alienated from their families. Some took their own lives.”

“Many moved away from Tasmania,” he added. “It is hard to imagine the trauma that accumulates from the mistreatment, stigma and ostracism.

“In subsequent decades, no one said a word about how they were treated. It was completely ignored and covered up.”

Mr Croome was one of the leaders of a nearly decade-long public campaign that pressured the state government to decriminalise same-sex male relationships in Tasmania. 

“(The Tasmanian laws) carried the harshest penalty in the Western world – 21 years in jail,” he said.

“It was a bitter and difficult battle,” he added, reflecting on the political and “strong community backlash” that he and fellow activists faced.

Mr Croome recalled meeting a man who was convicted in Tasmania decades ago for having a sexual relationship with another man. 

“He was 21 years old. It was the early 1970s and the judge gave him a choice of being sent to prison or to an asylum for aversion practices,” Mr Croome said.

That man chose the psychiatric institution, “where he was injected with nausea-inducing drugs and shown pictures of naked men in an obvious and futile attempt to stop him being gay”.

Those who survived are now elderly, with the oldest in their 90s.

None of them is known to have spoken publicly about their convictions in the decades since the laws were repealed. 

With some of them approaching the end of their lives, Mr Croome said the “difficult decision” was made to approve the redress scheme without individually reviewing their cases.

The Tasmanian government prioritised compensation instead of putting the elderly survivors through a protracted inquiry process.

Mr Croome, however, hopes that the cases will be individually reviewed and that it could result in some of the men receiving more compensation in the future.

He also wants the families of the men who have died to be considered for reparations, which is not allowed under the current system. 

“Tasmania’s legislators know that providing them with several tens of thousands of dollars is not going to remove, or even completely heal, what happened. But it is a sign of the state taking responsibility,” he said.

Ms Ruth Forrest, who chaired the Tasmanian Parliament’s gender and equality committee, said the affected men missed out on many opportunities in life because of their criminal records.

“These laws should not have been laws in the first place,” she said.

The compensation “doesn’t take away the trauma or the pain, but it does send a message that we are sorry this happened, and this is our way of providing some measure of financial support”, she added.

More than 60 countries still have laws that criminalise same-sex relationships and ban certain forms of gender expression. Singapore is one of several countries that have repealed homosexuality laws in the past decade.

“It’s very powerful and healing to the LGBTIQ community to see genuine remorse for the wrongs of the past,” said Dr Gerber.

“What happened in Australia should send a message to those countries that have recently decriminalised homosexuality that this is the first step on the journey of healing, and not the end,” she added. “It’s never too late.”

stworld@sph.com.sg