Queensland Passes Age of Consent from 18 to 16
Age of Consent legislation changes occurred in 2016 bringing the age for sex between males down to sixteen years of age from eighteen.
It took several years of lobbying and campaigns to make it equal. At the time, the age of consent was 16 for heterosexual youth but 18 for gay males. Surprisingly, the age of consent for lesbians was the same as for heterosexual youth. If its legal for 16-year-old opposite-sex attracted youth to have sex, why not same-sex attracted young males?
John Frame was the leader of this campaign, but he was most thankful for support. This again took many hours of letter writing and talking with State MPs.
The problem was not just the inequality; it was about if an underage youth had sex and contracted an STI, they might be hesitant to seek medical attention because it would involve police and naming the partner, which most did not want to do. It also automatically outed the young person to their parents. And this is not the way parents need to find out about sexual diversity and their sons.
2015 Labor Government Shines
Every election time I would ask the various parties what they were going to do for the LGBTQIA+ community. Normally, they stated something positive, but not the LNP. We had already survived 3 years of Campbell Newman as Premier. Campbell defunded every LGBTQIA+ organisation in 3 short years, among other groups. However, when I called and asked them what they would give or do, I was told “nothing”. I did make them aware I was going to print their response.
When I called Labor, they asked me to write a letter telling them what I wanted, and they would then get back to me within a couple of days. Amazingly, they did and below is the letter I received. And best of all they did everything they promised and more. This was the first government that actually cared about LGBTQIA+ people. It wasn’t just tokenism. There were times someone would phone me asking “what else is in the letter needing to be done?”
Peter Beattie, when he legislated for same-sex attracted couples’ de facto rights in 2002, said “this is all you are getting and don’t ask for anything else”.
Anna Bligh gave parental recognition and would have abolished panic defence, but lost the election
Wayne Goss decriminalised homosexuality in 1991.
Campbell Newman defunded everything LGBTQIA+ except the Helpline.
Annastacia Palaszczuk was by far the best Premier regarding LGBTQIA+ rights. She gave everything outlined in the adjacent letter (see image gallery), plus trans people gained several additional rights, centered around name changes and gender on birth certificates, passports etc.
2016 Adoption and Altruistic Surrogacy Was Legalised For Same-Sex Couples In Queensland
- I ran adverts on the radio.
- 1/4-page adverts in the Courier Mail every week for about two months.
- I did some TV interviews to get the message out.
- I wrote letters that had photos of affected babies and couples to the MPs every week.
- I did a Queensland-wide media release every week.
I was so known by Anna Bligh’s policy adviser, and one morning he called me at 8am to tell me that Anna Bligh was going to introduce the proposed legislation early that morning in parliament and would it be possible to please let everyone know. Additionally, he wanted as many people as I could get to be in the gallery when this happened.
I knew this would not go well in certain circles and I was correct. I politely suggested he call the few who were big in the community, but he said, “Who are they?” I laughed to myself and began making calls. I got screaming, foul language emails from one particular group, but I did manage to get a good crowd into parliament that were supportive.
