The ACT has moved to expunge historic convictions of homosexuality, the territory’s attorney general Simon Corbell says.
Consensual sex between men was a crime in the ACT until 1976.
“It is important that the ACT provides equality and access to justice for men who were convicted of a crime that by modern day standards is no longer considered a criminal act,” Corbell said.
Men convicted under the historic laws – which included attempted buggery, buggery on a male person and indecent assault on a male person – can apply to have their convictions expunged.
The move has the bipartisan support of both political sides in the ACT.
“The number of men with a criminal conviction for homosexual sex is not known, however it is estimated a small number of relevant convictions do exist in the ACT,” Corbell said.
The move follows similar moves by South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. The UK announced it would expunge the criminal convictions of gay men in 2010.
“Several jurisdictions have made or are considering schemes to erase convictions for consensual homosexual acts,” Corbell said.
The deputy national director of Australian marriage equality, ACT local Ivan Hinton, said the territory’s announcement “reaffirms that the convictions were wrong”.
He said that there is an unknown number of older members of the gay community who have been “carrying this burden with them silently for the most of their lives”. He praised the move as “enormously powerful”.
The Human Rights Law Centre welcomed the announcement.
“It’s extremely pleasing to see the ACT government joining with Victoria and NSW in acknowledging that these laws were wrong and committing to erase the leftover convictions,” the centre’s director of strategic litigation and advocacy, Anna Brown, said.
“This move will help to ease the stigma and shame and remove practical difficulties still faced by men haunted by the legacy of unjust laws,” Brown said.
Shadow assistant treasurer and federal Canberra MP Andrew Leigh said expunging convictions is “a fundamental issue of human rights.”
“We’re talking about an issue which really clears up the historical record,” Leigh said.
The NSW independent MP Alex Greenwich led the charge to have convictions expunged in that state.
He said the move was of “really symbolic importance because it says homosexual acts should never have been a crime in the first place”.
“It closed the book on criminal convictions,” he said.
He noted that Tasmania was also moving to expunge prior convictions and urged other jurisdictions to follow suit.
“I hope it’s an election issue in Queensland,” he said.
