*Age Of Consent
& Legal Sexual Activity
for the State of
From the website of Queer
Radio, the gay & lesbian
Community Radio program on 4ZZZ
fm102.1 in
A brief story of this
campaign…
This
comprehensive file records all of my efforts, since February 2000, in
attempting to get the Queensland Government to either reform Queensland law to
a true equal age of consent of 16 (as
their own Committee recommended in 1990) or to at least properly inform its
public about the correct interpretation of Age Of Consent in relation to lawful
sexual activity.
Nowhere else
in Australia is there a law which discriminates on the basis of consenting
sexual activity - the Age Of Consent is TRULY equal for men and women at 17 in
South Australia and Tasmania, and at 16 in New South Wales, Western Australia,
Victoria, Canberra and the Northern Territory.
Around the world "sodomy" is a legal term which has
been used to mean various sexual activities - sometimes all sex that is not "penis
in vagina" sex (even for heterosexuals). Some
The Queensland Attorney General advises that our sodomy law
applies only to "a penis entering an anus". Therefore there is no
doubt that the Queensland sodomy law actively discriminates purely on the basis
of private consenting behaviour, which is the same
reason that the USA sodomy laws were declared invalid.
Since early 2000,
I have made every effort to lobby the Beattie Government directly, to garner
LGBT community support, to raise the profile of this issue in LGBT media and to
get mainstream media to present the issue to the public. So far the only
mainstream media coverage has come from national youth radio TripleJ (Steve Cannane’s
The Hack, 14th Feb ’05) and local ABC
Radio612 (Steve Austin, 20th June ’05). Alternative media in the form of
On 5th January 2004 I emailed each individual Member of
Parliament in
On the eve of
Valentine’s Day 2005 (
In January
2005 a Queensland Parliamentary E-Petition went online seeking support for
an equal age of consent through Sodomy Law Reform. It closed on
On 15th July 2005
Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Susan Booth wrote to the
Attorney-General and to the Premier stating her official opinion that the
Sodomy Law must be reformed urgently. Unfortunately the Commission is not
chartered to enforce action on State law.
On 14th July 2005
Brisbane Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays
wrote to the Attorney-General and the Premier asking for urgent reform.
In Mid-October
2005 a letter co-signed by over twenty eminent community organizations and
groups was sent to the Attorney General, the Premier and to the Ministers for
Heath, Child Safety and Education.
On 3rd
February 2010 the Hon Michael D. Kirby AC CMG, retired Justice of the High
Court of Australia, issued a strong statement of support for equal age of
consent reform.
On 20th August
2015 news broke that the Palaszczuk Labor Government were
funding an expert committee to report to Parliament regarding equal age of
consent reform.
On 25th
May 2016 Health Minister Cameron Dick announced that a Bill would be
introduced to equalise the age of consent at 16 to
ensure maximum delivery of safe sex information to youth.