Expungement of Historical Gay Sexual Offences and Cross-dressing Offences

Tasmania was the last state to decriminalise homosexuality and the only state to have criminalised cross-dressing. As Equality Tasmania described it in a submission to a Parliamentary Inquiry:

“Charges and convictions under our former laws led to fines, gaol, aversion practices, involuntary outing, loss of jobs, loss of family, loss of relationships, interstate exile and suicide. Victims endured humiliation, shame, stigma, discrimination, pain and trauma. For decades after their conviction, having a criminal record made it much harder for those targeted under our old laws to find employment and housing.”

The laws were repealed in 1997 and 2001 respectively. In 2017, the Tasmanian Government recognised the deep pain and damage inflicted by these former laws by allowing historic criminal records for homosexuality and cross-dressing to be expunged (erased). In 2025, in a national first, the State Government sought to repair the damage inflicted by the former laws by providing financial redress.

Homosexuality and cross-dressing should never have been crimes and we cannot undo the harm caused by these unfair and unjust laws.

If you were charged or convicted under former laws against homosexuality and cross-dressing, you can have them removed from your criminal record. You will be eligible to receive a redress payment if you have an eligible charge or conviction successfully removed.

Charges for related offences can also be expunged. This could mean an offence of resisting arrest or abusing a police officer that is related to historical homosexual or cross-dressing activity.

Payments from $15,000 to $75,000 are available to people who have an eligible charge expunged. This is explained further on the questions and answers page.

What is expungement?

Under the Expungement of Historical Offences Scheme, a person or an appropriate representative can confidentially apply for gay sexual offences and cross-dressing offences from the past to be removed from their criminal record.

The scheme applies to conduct that is no longer a crime including:

  • consenting sex between men
  • men loitering or soliciting sex with other men
  • a person assigned male at birth in a public place dressed in female clothes between sunset and sunrise
  • offences that were charged in relation to any of the above, such as resisting or obstructing arrest or assaulting a police officer.

The scheme also applies to attempting to commit offences. You can read more about this by reading answers to frequently asked questions.

If a person’s historical charge is expunged, then:

  • the person is not required to disclose the charge or conviction, including when giving evidence under oath;
  • the charge and any conviction is taken not to form part of the person’s official criminal history;
  • the disclosure (or non-disclosure) of an expunged charge or conviction is not proper grounds for refusing a person any appointment, office, status or privilege; and
  • it is an offence for any other person without authority to disclose or seek to obtain information about a person’s expunged charge or conviction.

Records about charges will be obtained from the police and the courts. In most cases this information will be sufficient for the application to be determined. Applicants will not be required to attend a hearing or provide oral evidence.

An expunged charge will no longer appear on a police criminal history check.

A person is automatically eligible for a redress payment if a charge is successfully expunged, if the person was alive when the application for expungement was made.

What is redress?

The Tasmanian Government recognises the deep negative impact of the state’s former laws against gay sex and against cross-dressing.

It is the first Government in Australia to offer financial redress for those directly impacted by these laws.

A person is automatically eligible for a redress payment if a charge is successfully expunged.

There are three different payment amounts

  • People who were charged with an offence but were not convicted and did not serve time in jail will receive $15,000
  • People who were convicted and did not serve any time in jail or receive any other court sanction will receive $45,000 and
  • People who were convicted of offences and served time in jail or had other court sanctions, will receive $75,000.

You can find out more by reading answers to frequently asked questions.

Making an application

You can make a confidential application online or by downloading an application and sending it to us by email or post.

If the person who was charged or convicted is deceased, someone else including a spouse or person who was in a significant relationship with the eligible person, child, parent, sibling, niece, nephew or legal personal representative can make the application.

Redress payments are only available to the person who was charged or convicted and is alive at the time of application.

All applicants (or appropriate representatives) need to provide certified identity documents to establish their right to make the application and to access personal information.

There is no fee to make an application.

Related information