Legislative Council, Wednesday 5 November 2025
Ms FORREST (Murchison) – Mr President, I rise today, as I did some time ago, to support the intent of this, and with commendation that it goes further than the bill that was presented to this House. I support the Expungement of Historical Offences Amendment Bill 2025 and also recognise the work that the Joint Sessional Committee on Gender and Equality did in informing this legislation now before us.
Ms O’Connor – Why don’t you give credit to the Greens? We wouldn’t be having this debate –
Ms FORREST – I’m getting there.
Ms O’Connor – Well, I’ve just listened to us being written out of the history.
Mr PRESIDENT – Order. Order. You can have your contribution when you’re called. This interjection has to stop. It’s happening all the time and it’s making other members reluctant to get up and make contributions. It continually happens and it’s not setting a very good example for anyone. This is the Legislative Council, and we have a way of behaving in this Chamber that all members should respect.
Ms FORREST – This bill represents a watershed moment for Tasmania. We are about to become Australia’s first jurisdiction to not only expunge the records of those convicted under these unjust laws criminalising homosexuality and cross‑dressing, but also to provide meaningful redress for the harm inflicted by the state as a result of those charges and convictions. Charges and convictions have caused many men enormous trauma and their families that have had lifelong implications on their lives. Sadly, many of these men have already died, some at their own hand. Many also left the state. Members may recall in response to an amendment inserted in the House of Assembly by the Greens, and I commend them for the work they did, to set up a process to determine a level of redress that would be suitable and then was counted in our house with an amendment proposed by the government that offered a one-off fixed payment of $5000, which, in talking about community expectation, was an absolute insult to any men and their families who had been subject to these unjust, inappropriate laws.
In my contribution to the bill, I referred to this matter, the matter of an appropriate compensation level or redress, as it is now referred to, to the Gender and Equality Committee for full of consideration. This is because we now have competing proposals – one that was completely out of step with community expectations and another that was a well considered amendment by the Greens inserted in the House of Assembly that did not necessarily provide for a speedy outcome. Had I known it was going to take this long to get here – anyway, here we are.
I am not going to go over all the detail the Leader covered in relation to the other aspects of the bill, particularly because she’s given a really thorough appraisal of the other recommendations that were made by the Tasmania Law Reform Institute to amend, update, and respond to challenge issues with the expansion bill. I appreciate that the government did previously take up all the recommendations except for the one related to compensation, hence where we are now.
Mr President, the committee’s report was tabled in March 2025 and demonstrates exactly what parliamentary oversight can and should achieve. Through careful consideration of evidence from stakeholders, international jurisdictions and expert witnesses, the committee navigated complex questions about justice, compensation and reconciliation. The committee conducted hearings, receiving submissions from key LGBTIQA+ organisations, including Equality Tasmania and the Community Legal Centres Tasmania, and sought advice from Professor Paula Gerber of Monash University. This rigorous process ensured that the voices of those most affected by Tasmania’s historic laws were heard and centred in the development of what came to be the committee’s report and the amendments I subsequently drafted, thinking we were not going to an early election, we could have dealt with it.
The committee’s finding that a victim focused approach to the determination of redress is crucial to progressing an appropriate redress scheme guided all of the committee’s recommendations. This principle that those who suffered under unjust laws must be at the heart of any redress process and this is now reflected in the bill, which I acknowledge the government taking up.
We cannot discuss this bill without acknowledging Tasmania’s shameful distinction. We were the last Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise homosexuality in 1997 and the only state to ever criminalise cross dressing. The shadows cast by these laws have been long and dark. As the committee heard in evidence, up to 100 individuals were charged under these former laws. Their lives were marked by fines, imprisonment, involuntary outing, loss of employment, loss of family relationships, interstate exile and, tragically, suicide. Victims endured humiliation, shame, stigma, discrimination, pain and trauma that lasted decades. Many of these men are now in in in their old age, still living with that trauma.
The committee report reminds us that having a criminal record made it profoundly harder for those targeted to find employment and housing for decades after their conviction. The state did this harm, and therefore the state bears responsibility for seeking to repair some of that damage. This bill makes important improvements to the expungement scheme established in 2017. It expands the range of offences that can be expunged to include related offences, recognising that charges like loitering or public annoyance were often laid as part of the discrimination against LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians. It does strengthen protection for victim‑centred approaches to investigations, enhances confidentiality provisions, and improves record‑disposal processes, as the Leader has well outlined.
The most significant element of this bill is the inclusion of the redress payments. When then premier Will Hodgman apologised in 2017 on behalf of the state, he acknowledged that these matters should never have been crimes. We began the work of reconciliation at that point. The expungement scheme was, or is, an important step, but as Equality Tasmania told the committee, expungement alone does not provide redress for the fact that they did it.
The government has accepted the committee’s recommendations, and I subsequently prepared amendments to reflect these recommendations to be considered when the debate resumed in our house. As I’ve said, unfortunately another early election was called, and parliament was prorogued. I did have a conversation with a then-government member during the election period and suggested that should they win, that the bill be reintroduced with the amendments included because obviously the bill had to go back to the lower House and be re-debated there. I said, ‘To save us the pain, put them in.’ I commend the government for doing that.
I am very pleased to see that the government has done it and these amendments now provide for a comprehensive three-tiered redress scheme. The three tiers are set at:
- $15,000 for persons who were charged but not convicted and did not serve time in jail. This acknowledges that the very charge alone caused great trauma for these individuals.
- $45,000 for persons who were convicted and did not serve time in jail. A conviction on your record has severe implications on your life.
- $75,000 for persons who were convicted and served time in jail, or were subjected to other forms of punishment, such as aversion practices.
The committee heard some of these practices. I was aware of some of these things prior to the committee’s hearings. The trauma that would cause these men is life-long. While you can never fully compensate anyone for the trauma they’ve suffered at the hands of the state like this, these recommendations that have been adopted, that were based on evidence from experts in the field, do go some way to recognising that pain, shame, and trauma these many endured.
These payments will be made automatically upon successful expungement without requiring victims to ensure another application process to prove their suffering. It will be hard enough for some of these men to actually go through the process of seeking expungement of their records. Acknowledging that many of these men are very elderly and obviously some of them will not be in the best of health. Other people can do that on their behalf if they’re unable to do it, but it’s still going to be a traumatic experience to relive that.
This automatic payment structure reflects the committee’s careful considerations of what other jurisdictions have done and what Tasmanian victims deserve. The committee heard evidence from international schemes in Germany, Austria, Spain, France, and Canada. The committee considered other Australian redress schemes for wrongful convictions – victims of crime compensation, institutional child abuse, the stolen generation, and stolen wages – to get a bit of an idea of how this could be best set and framed.
Through the comprehensive analysis, the committee arrived at amounts that acknowledged the severity of the harm without being administratively straightforward. As Professor Gerber advised the committee, it is vital that redress amounts err on the side of overcompensating rather than under compensating, because a failure to recognise the severity of the harm suffered risks exacerbating the injury already experienced by the individual.
I want to particularly acknowledge Rodney Croome and Equality Tasmania for their decades of advocacy. As the committee noted in their report, Equality Tasmania’s submission and participation was instrumental in achieving this outcome. The credit rests with Rodney and the people who support him in this long journey he has been on; that’s entirely where the credit rests. This persistent, gentle and strong advocacy has been a beacon not just for Tasmania’s LGBTIQA+ community, but for human rights advocates across Australia and beyond, and we will see that flow through, I hope, once this bill passes.
The committee also heard from one of the independent reviewers, Taya Ketelaar-Jones, and the Leader mentioned her involvement, whose 2020 review with Melanie Bartlett recommended that redress payments be included. Recommendation 13 of that review has been the touchstone for this legislation’s development and inclusion of this provision.
The committee emphasised that timeliness is critical. As I’ve said, many eligible individuals are of advanced age. Every delay in implementing this scheme is denying justice those who have waited so long, and I’m sorry that we didn’t get to complete it in the last parliament when we were ready to go. This bill ensures that once the expungement process is complete, redress follows automatically and swiftly. As the committee heard, there may be as few as 10 individuals still living who may be able to apply for the scheme. Each one of them deserves to see justice in their lifetime.
One aspect of the bill that deserves particular recognition is how it came to be. While there were initially different views between the government and other parties about the form and quantum of redress, this process has been characterised by consultation and compassion rather than politicisation. Isn’t that a good thing to do? The committee noted in the report that it was really good listening to the Attorney‑General say that we needed to work together on this. He said this collaborative approach, with the government accepting the committee’s evidence‑based recommendations, shows parliament at its best.
Tasmania has taken the opportunity to lead the nation. No other Australian jurisdiction currently provides redress payments for expungement of historical offences. As Equality Tasmania told the committee, the amount Tasmania settled on will be considered a precedent for other states when they consider redress for the same crimes. I hope that proves to be the case.
The message this bill sends, both nationally and internationally, is that Tasmania is willing to genuinely come to terms with being the last state to decriminalise homosexuality and the only state to decriminalise cross-dressing. It shows we are serious about making amends for, reconciling with and healing from those dark times. My thoughts are with the families and the men who this bill particularly relates to. The committee also heard evidence from partners and family members of those charged with historic offences who have lived with the pain and trauma suffered by their loved ones. Rodney Croome talked about one of those such cases in the briefing just earlier.
While this bill does not directly address this matter, the committee has recommended the government give further consideration to extending support to family members. It wasn’t the request of this House for the committee to look at that, it is a complex body of work, but the reason for this is the committee wanted to make sure this is not seen as the end point. I certainly encourage the government to look at this matter and see how it can be addressed and to try and progress that also in a more timely manner.
This would have a compassionate recognition that harm ripples beyond the individual directly affected. This bill represents more than legislative reform. It’s an act of restorative justice. It acknowledges that what was done to LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians, and particularly gay men, was profoundly wrong. It recognised that apologising and expunging records, while important, is insufficient without material redress. The three‑tiered payment structure acknowledges that different levels of harm. Someone who was charged, but the matter didn’t proceed, still suffered. Someone convicted suffered more. Someone imprisoned and subject to aversion therapies or other conversion practices, those cruel attempts to cure people of their sexual orientation or gender identity, suffered the most. Each tier reflects this reality.
When this bill passes, and I’m confident it will, Tasmania will have one of the most comprehensive and compassionate schemes in the world for addressing historical injustices against LGBTIQ+ people. We will have a model that other jurisdictions hopefully will study and emulate.
We must also recognise that no amount of money can fully compensate for decades of discrimination, stigma and trauma. No redress scheme can restore lost careers, broken families or lives lived in fear and shame. What this bill can do is formally acknowledge the injustice, provide tangible recognition of harm, and demonstrate that Tasmania has changed. Through the work of the joint committee, who reached full consensus on the recommendations, we’ve led to this very positive outcome.
We now have a model, through a thorough, victim‑focused inquiry that listened to the lived experience of those impacted, the expert evidence that was received, and arrived at principled recommendations. I commend the Government for accepting these recommendations and bringing this bill forward in the form it is. I commend Equality Tasmania, Community Legal Centres Tasmania, and all the advocates who have worked tirelessly for this outcome.
Most importantly, I recognise and honour those Tasmanians who lived through the injustice of criminalisation. To those who are still living who may be eligible for expungement and redress, Tasmania acknowledges what was done to you was wrong. We are sorry. We are committed to making things right. This bill is overdue, but it is never too late to do the right thing. I support it wholeheartedly, and I am sure other members will join me.