Men convicted of gay sex offences in New Zealand to have convictions erased

New Zealand is set to unanimously pass a law allowing for convictions of men for homosexual ‘crimes’ to be expunged from the public record.

Nearly 1,000 men were found guilty of homosexual offences between 1965 and the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1986.

They will now be able to apply for those convictions to be deleted. There is also the option for a family member or other representative to do this if the person with a conviction has died.

It is expected that Parliament will make a second formal apology to these men, though there seems to be no prospect of compensation.

In total, 138 men were handed a prison sentence for homosexual offences, while the others were given fines or community-based sentences.

Parliament has seen a host of emotional speeches throughout the legislative process for this bill.

Grant Robertson, the gay Finance Minister, told his fellow lawmakers: Let us be clear. The illegality of homosexuality, the arrests and the imprisonments, and the fear of that happening did not just ruin lives and destroy potential; it killed people.

“Hundreds, or possibly thousands, of lives have been lost because men could not bear the shame, the stigma, and the hurt caused by this Parliament and the way that society viewed them as criminals.

“It is for all of that that we must apologise, as a Government and as a Parliament, to those men who are still alive and to those who have passed on and their families,” he continued.

“To those families, it is important that you take the opportunity afforded by this legislation to give dignity in death to your relatives that this Parliament did not allow them in life.

“I also want to speak today to those gay men who were not convicted in this period, but, rather, lived through it in the face of discrimination, in the face of hate, and in the face of stigma.