Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week the South Australian parliament will recognise the 50th anniversary of my home state becoming the first place in Australia to decriminalise male homosexuality. The push for decriminalisation gathered momentum after the suspected gay-hate murder of Dr George Duncan, a professor at the University of Adelaide. Dr Duncan's death provided a catalyst for reform which was ultimately enacted by the Dunstan Labor government. But it was actually a Liberal and Country League member, Murray Hill, who first introduced the bill in 1972 to partially decriminalise homosexuality. In doing so, Murray Hill drew on classical Liberal principles—freedom of the individual, protection of minorities and the separation of church and state. I remind Liberal senators of this proud Liberal tradition of expanding rights and protections for gays and lesbians and for women, and of support for Australian multiculturalism. Next month the South Australia parliament will host a reenactment of the 1975 parliamentary debate on decriminalisation, co-ordinated by my dear friend and long time gay-rights advocate Ian Hunter MLC.

In 2017 I spoke in this parliament as our nation passed laws to legalise marriage equality. I said that to remove discrimination in our laws was essential, but that we as LGBTQIA+ people had, more than that, worked to change hearts and minds. That work remains unfinished. Divisive actors, both here and abroad, seek to roll back our hard-won rights. In doing so, they often draw on negative stereotypes as familiar as they are offensive to paint LGBTQIA+ people as a danger to society. So we continue in the spirit of the great Don Dunstan and his great reforming South Australian government 50 years ago to fight for equality and to be recognised wholly for who we are.