Gay rights advocates are gearing up to fight the New Zealand government for compensation for men convicted of homosexual crimes.

Last year justice minister Amy Adams apologised to hundreds of gay men who were convicted of a crime for engaging in consensual sex prior to the homosexual law reform of 1986.

Following decades of petitioning by campaigners the government is working towards expunging the criminal records of convicted men, but has ruled out financial compensation, as have the British and Australian governments in similar circumstances.

But veteran gay rights campaigner Bill Logan says New Zealand should follow the “civilised” example of Germany and Canada in awarding compensation to the hundreds of men whose lives were “ruined”.

“People lives have been wrecked by an injustice that was done to them by the law and it is really the least they can expect to have some kind of recompense in their old age for this rather terrible thing that has happened to them,” said Logan.

“Perhaps if they [the government] do nothing there won’t be too much a fuss and it will go away. But I think that we’ve got to make it clear if they don’t do something, there’s going to be a much bigger problem.”

“These laws ruined lives and we need to do more than apologise, we need to give something back to them,” Young Labour’s Alka Ahirao told Stuff, in calling for compensation to be granted.

A spokesperson for the ministry of justice said the government was not considering compensation.

“It is very difficult to quantify actual harm - and not just to people who were convicted,” they said.

“LGBT people who were not convicted missed out on opportunities because of fear of the unjust law, and many who were convicted have passed away. What is most important is absolving people of unjust convictions.”



Dr Bill Hodge from the faculty of law at the University of Auckland said despite there being no legal recourse for compensation in New Zealand, a petition could be presented to the government on political, humanitarian and moral grounds.

“It is certainly something the government should entertain ... but there it no guide to how we should measure it,” said Hodge.

“Is it emotional harm, jail time? We don’t know how much money we’re talking about because we don’t know how many people are still around who would be pursuing it and we don’t know how much we would give them per conviction.”

Wiremu Demchick, a gay-rights campaigner, said the issue of compensation had routinely divided the LGBTQI community in New Zealand, with some feeling an apology and pardon were enough, and wary that pushing for compensation would have made the original battle even harder.

“There was a feeling that going much further than that would not be very helpful towards the overall goal of reconciliation in the community.” said Demchick.

Last year Germany’s cabinet approved a bill to overturn the convictions of thousands of gay men who were prosecuted after the second world war.

Compensation payments of €3,000 (£2,600) for each conviction as well as €1,500 (£1,300) for every year started in prison would be paid to convicted men.

In Canada the Liberal government introduced legislation that would allow people to apply to have their criminal convictions for consensual sexual activity between same-sex partners erased from public record, and earmarked more than $100m Canadian (US $78m) to compensate members of the military and other federal agencies whose careers were sidelined or ended due to their sexual orientation.



