New South Wales Premier Chris Minns will offer a formal state apology to people convicted under landmark laws that made homosexuality a crime until 1984, when discriminatory laws were abolished.
Minns will address the lower house on Thursday at 12.15pm, where he will apologize “unreservedly” to those affected by the laws.
It will also “recognize and (express) regret” the role of the New South Wales parliament in “enacting laws and supporting policies of successive government decisions that criminalised, persecuted and harmed people because of their sexuality and gender”.
New South Wales is the latest state to issue an apology and is eight years behind Victoria and South Australia, which formally apologized in 2016.
The motion will also recognize the trauma felt and endured by the LGBTQIA+ community, their families and loved ones.
Labor leader in the Legislative Council Penny Sharpe, who is the first lesbian to serve in the New South Wales parliament and the state’s first lesbian minister, will issue a similar apology in the upper house at 2pm.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns will offer a formal state apology to people convicted under landmark laws that made homosexuality a crime (pictured, Sydney Mardi Gras 2023).
Minns (pictured) will address the lower house on Thursday at 12.15pm, where he will apologize “unreservedly” to those affected by the laws.
More than a dozen of the 78ers who marched in Sydney’s first Mardi Gras will attend the apology, as will prominent Sydney gay rights activist Robert French.
Jill Wran, wife of former Labor Prime Minister Neville Wran, who oversaw the decriminalization of homosexuality, will also be present in the New South Wales parliament. Wran died in 2014.
Sharpe said Thursday’s motion will be an “opportunity to thank those who fought for change.”
“A formal apology from the state to those who suffered at the hands of laws that criminalized homosexuality recognizes the harm caused to many and acknowledges that it was wrong,” he said.
The NSW Government’s apology comes two days before the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Crimes (Amendment) Bill 1984, which finally decriminalized homosexual acts.
Labor leader in the Legislative Council Penny Sharpe (pictured), the first lesbian to serve in the New South Wales parliament, will issue a similar apology in the upper house at 2pm.
New South Wales was the fourth jurisdiction to repeal discriminatory laws, followed by South Australia, the ACT, Victoria and the Northern Territory.
This was years after Sydney’s first Mardi Gras on June 24, 1978, which resulted in the violent arrest and imprisonment of several protesters who would become known as the 78ers.
Former Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet was criticized for resisting a formal apology in the run-up to Sydney hosting WorldPride in 2023.