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Rainbow flag raised outside Parliament to mark 30 years since Homosexual Law Reform

Author
Newstalk ZB staff,
Publish Date
Wed, 6 Jul 2016, 3:07PM
Photo / Getty Images
Photo / Getty Images

Rainbow flag raised outside Parliament to mark 30 years since Homosexual Law Reform

Author
Newstalk ZB staff,
Publish Date
Wed, 6 Jul 2016, 3:07PM

A rainbow flag is flying proudly outside Parliament today, celebrating 30 years since the passing of the Homosexual Law Reform Act.

It's the first time the LGBT flag has flown outside Parliament.

Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson said it's a reminder to New Zealand to be proud of the advances it's made.

"30 years ago, it was a crime to be a gay man, and for me that would have meant that I would have been a criminal, and so it's an important day to recognize how far we've come."

Mr Robertson said even though we've come so far, it's still a difficult journey for people to come out and be who they are.

"Particularly the young people who might be the subject of bullying or other types of abuse that we need to provide support to them and help the rest of the community move from tolerance to acceptance of the diversity that we have."

A reception is planned tonight to celebrate the anniversary and honour the MPs who passed the bill three decades ago.

Meanwhile, a fresh push is being made for pardons to those who were convicted for being gay - those who were convicted before the law change still have those convictions on their records.

Green MP Kevin Hague is backing a petition that seeks to have those convictions overturned, and for the Government to apologise to those affected - many of whom, he said, had their lives blighted by their convictions.

"That's what an apology and a reversal of a conviction can mean now. It can't give them back all those years of life, but it can say we, the New Zealand Parliament, acknowledge the great wrong that was done to you."

But he said a problem is that men who were convicted for having consensual sex were convicted under the same laws as people convicted of statutory rape - so you couldn't quash the convictions of everyone.

"What's required is a more case-by-case approach, and that might mean that we ask officials or a tribunal to sift through those convictions and distinguish on the facts that we know."

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