Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Act 2024 and Changes to Criminal Law

On 1 December 2024, the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Act 2024 commenced and amended parts of the criminal law to address actions taken against members of the LGBTIQA+ Community and Sex Workers.

The Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 was amended, specifically providing an example of harassment to include the following:

(1)  Intentionally disclosing or threatening to disclose any of the following about a person without the person’s consent, known as “outing”—

(a)  the person’s sexual orientation,

(b)  the person’s gender history,

(c)  that the person has a variation of sex characteristics,

(d)  that the person lives with HIV,

(e)  that the person is, or has been, a sex worker.

(2)  For subsection (1)(b) of this example, gender history means the sex recorded at birth for the person is different to the sex the person identifies with, lives in or seeks to live in, whether or not the person’s record of sex is altered under—

(a)  the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1995, Part 5A, or

(b)  the corresponding provisions of a law of another State or Territory or a jurisdiction outside Australia.

Further, if there is an allegation that the defendant has engaged in harassing conduct, specific to whether a person is living with HIV/AIDs, there is good reason for the matter not to proceed to conciliation in an Application for an Apprehended Personal Violence Order. Further, should the registrar refuse to make an order when these allegations arise, they are required to provide compelling reasons.

Concurrently, the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 was amended to add an aggravating factor on Sentence, namely that:

the offence was motivated by hatred for or prejudice against a group of people to which the offender believed the victim belonged (such as people of a particular religion, racial or ethnic origin, language, sexual orientation or age, or having a particular disability)

As such, it is now explicitly stated in law that if an offence was motivated by hatred for or prejudice against a group of people to which the offender believed the victim belonged in relation to their gender identity or particular variations of sex characteristics they have, the offence will be viewed as aggravated.

In the Summary Offences Act 1988, the offence of living wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitution of another person was repealed. This follows the movement of decriminalising sex work that commenced in 1979.

As a whole, the Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Act 2024 aims to amend criminal legislation, and more specifically domestic violence legislation, to be in line with recent reforms, such as coercive controls laws introduced earlier this year and explicitly criminalise certain forms of prejudice, discrimination and intimidation.