78ers Speak Out On the LGBTIQ Hate Crimes Report & NSW Government’s Apology

78ers Mark Gillespie, Graham Chuck and Peter Murphy deliver their thoughts on the recent report from the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes, the NSW Government‘s apology decision to implement all 19 of the recommendations delivered by the Inquiry, ad what else needs to be done about historical gay hate crimes.

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78ers welcome the announcement last Thursday by Police Minister Yasmin Catley on behalf of the Premier Chris Minns, and Police Commissioner Karen Webb, that all 19 recommendations made by Justice John Sackar in his Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes will be implemented.

The 2023 Sackar Inquiry Report will stand alongside the 1997 Wood Royal Commission Report as an important milestone in revealing and exposing entrenched corruption and systemic misogyny, homophobia and transphobia in the NSW Police Force.

Gay and trans lives did not count in the way other lives counted. In so many cases it was expedient for the NSW police to cite misadventure or suicide when investigating the deaths of queer people.

We are grateful to Minister Penny Sharpe MLC and all family members and loved ones of the gay and trans people murdered during the dark period between 1970 and 2010. Without them the inquiry would not have been established. We thank Justice Sackar and all who assisted the 18-month long inquiry.

All the recommendations should now be implemented, and some of them immediately. This includes holding fresh inquests into four deaths — those of Scott Miller, Paul Rath, Richard Slater and Carl Stockton based on the discovery of new evidence.

It is clear to us though that more cold cases should be re-opened. Why, for example, has the murder of William (Bill) Allen, who was badly beaten in Gay beat toilets in Alexandria Park in Sydney’s Inner-West on 28th December 1988, not been reopened? His killer or killers have never been found.

More general recommendations made by Justice Sackar include additional and ongoing training regarding interactions with queer communities. We strongly welcome this with the proviso that it be implemented with community LGBTIQ+ input.

While adopting the 19 recommendations is a valuable first step for the Minns Government, we believe careful oversight of their implementation will be required.

NSW Police must be held accountable. We call for transparent detailed report-back sessions on both cold case investigations and internal police policy and workplace cultural change to be made to queer communities and the public, not only to the members of the Task Force Atlas community consultative group, that has been set up.

We 78ers who survive have always known that that gay, lesbian, trans and gender diverse people are vulnerable and at risk of violence. We have lived it not only on that night when we were savagely attacked by NSW Police in June 1978 but throughout our lives. Though understandable it is sad that many of us have learned to fear not to trust the blue and now oft-times black police uniforms we see in our communities.

The Sackar Report offers an ideal opportunity for genuine change. We will support every genuine effort by both the NSW Government and the NSW Police Force to make these changes but re-confirm the need to hold to account any person, police officer or government official found to have contributed to LGBTIQ+ hate crimes or who acts to block this welcome change process.

See the SBS multimedia site ‘gay hate decades’ – it documents 30 of the gay and trans hate crime murders committed in Sydney between 1970 and 2010.

You can read the full Report from the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes here, and the NSW Government’s formal response here.