Introduction.

With the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes in New South Wales, Australia’s largest state, issuing its final report last month, I thought it would be timely to invite some of the people who gave evidence at the Inquiry to share their thoughts on its importance and its findings. This first blog is authored by Dr Gary Cox, who was part of the team that jump started the communities’ coordinated response to this violence more than 35 years ago.

It all began back in 1988 when the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (GLRL) was founded in response to concerns that the progress made in the previous decade regarding LGBTIQ rights, especially with regards to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, might be rolled back. Gary was elected as the first President of GLRL.

Amidst a backdrop of limited resources and a commitment to voluntary work, the GLRL became deeply concerned about violence against members of the LGBTIQ community. This concern led to the inception of the Streetwatch Project in 1988, an initiative aimed at gathering data on anti-LGBTIQ hate crimes in Sydney.

This project, carried out in collaboration with other respected community organisations, played a crucial role in shedding light on this issue. The Streetwatch Report, published in 1990, marked a significant step forward in addressing and eradicating hate crimes against the LGBTIQ community, with support from government officials and key allies.

Here is Gary’s blog.

On 23 November last year, I gave evidence to the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ Hate Crimes. My story starts when I was elected the first president of Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby or GLRL. But let me start with my thoughts on the inquiry and its findings.

The inquiry and its findings.

I did what I did in 1988 out of an instinctive sense of injustice and outrage. The Special Commission of Inquiry gives us all time to reflect. Firstly, I’d like to commend Justice John Sackar and his team for handling the Inquiry in an exemplary manner. Frankly, I’m used to inquiries in the UK that sometimes take decades. The Special Commission took just over a year and carried out its investigations in a thorough and diligent manner. You can access the reports and all the transcripts of evidence here: https://lgbtiq.specialcommission.nsw.gov.au/

I won’t go through the recommendations one by one. But I think one of the critical things the Inquiry did was to open up cold cases. These are cases that the NSW Police closed at the time as they believed there were no further leads or forensic evidence to lead to a prosecution.

The Inquiry looked at all the cold cases in some instances forensic evidence was reviewed with new techniques. In other cases, there was evidence in plain sight that wasn’t investigated properly at the time. I understand that two successful prosecutions have occurred as the result of the Special Commission’s work. There may be more to come. This is impressive.

What happened over the years in the NSW Police as regards many of the cases the Special Commission investigated amounted to an abuse of power. I felt this at the time all those years back with the NSW Police’s rather dismissive attitude to hate crime in the LGBTIQ community back then. Abuse of power comes as much from government or government agencies failing to act as much as from using powers excessively in an inappropriate manner. The failure around the way many suspected hate crime deaths of LGBTIQ people (or those presumed to be such) were handled and investigated, in many instances, amounted to an abuse of power through failure to act.

The following is my story – a longer version of which appears in my written and oral evidence to the Special Commission.

The start of the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby.

GLRL was formed following the change of NSW Government in March 1988, amidst concerns that some of the advances of the previous decade or so, particularly relating to the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977, might be reversed. This was a successor organisation to the Gay Rights Lobby which led the campaign to decriminalise male homosexual acts in NSW in the early 1980s. The GLRL had a broad remit to advance LGBTIQ rights in NSW with the understanding that HIV/AIDS issues would largely be taken up by organisations such as ACON.

I was elected as the GLRL’s first President at the initial public meeting in 1988, along with around 12 committee members. One priority for the GLRL was to increase the involvement of women in the organisation. Hence, a subsequent community meeting was held three months later (around the end of August 1988) at which I was elected male Co-Convenor and Jane Clements was elected female Co-Convenor. Membership of the GLRL committee was altered to provide for equal representation of men and women.

The GLRL was a community organisation and did not have any public funding at that time. It had very limited funds and relied on the support of other organisations and fundraising to conduct its activities. All members gave their time on a voluntary basis. Violence against members of the LGBTIQ community soon became the primary issue of concern to the GLRL.

1988 onwards: The Streetwatch Project.

In September 1988, following a meeting of the Police Gay/Lesbian Liaison Committee, I realised the urgent need for a project to gather data on violence against members of the LGBTIQ community.

By that time, there was a marked rise in violence in Sydney particularly against gay men. I was living in East Sydney at the time, close to the Oxford Street LGBTIQ ‘scene’ of commercial bars, pubs, clubs, cafes, and bookshops. I was aware that there was a definite upturn in street violence, and a number of friends of mine were directly affected.

At the Police Liaison Committee meeting in September 1988, this was discussed. I remember the meeting like it was yesterday. I found that the police members of the committee did not seem to believe the violence I was seeing was a real problem, as they were not receiving reports from survivors of these attacks. There was a palpable sense of complacency. Indeed, one police member of the committee said in my hearing that the main problem was ‘gays bashing themselves’. An odd comment.

I knew something need to happen and happen quickly. Immediately after the meeting, I drew up the outline of a project to enable members of the LGBTIQ community, directly affected by violence, to report to a trusted third party. The GLRL would gather the data as the evidence base that there was indeed a significant problem with anti-LGBTIQ hate crime in Sydney.

That same evening there was a meeting of the GLRL committee, at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Workshop in Boundary Street, Paddington. I presented the concept of the project to the committee and they accepted the challenge. I can say that they were all thirsty for change and accepted the challenge. Roles and tasks were allocated at that meeting. The project proceeded with a real sense of urgency. Two project convenors were selected: David Englebrecht and Karen Maxwell. David came up with the name ‘Streetwatch’.

The Streetwatch Project (Streetwatch) involved other community organisations as critical partners with GLRL. These organisations were the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service and Lesbian Line. These were both well respected and long-established organisations in the LGBTIQ community in Sydney. They both ran telephone advice and counselling phone lines and had a pool of volunteers. We asked both organisations to administer a 15 to 20 minute questionnaire with survivors of violent attacks or abuse. The GLRL would then collate the data and present a report to the NSW Government, the NSW Police and the Anti-Discrimination Board.

The GLRL obtained a $500 grant from the Anti-Discrimination Board for the printing of posters, and these were displayed in pubs, clubs, cafes and shops in LGBTIQ neighbourhoods in inner city Sydney. We sought discount rates for full page advertising in the community newspapers, the Sydney Star Observer, Oxford Weekender News and Lesbians on the Loose.

On 11 November 1988 the Sydney Star Observer reported on the launch of Streetwatch with an article on page 1 entitled “Anti-Violence Campaign Launched: Stop the Bashers!”

SSO Cover: Stop the Violence Campaign Launch, 1988

As the project proceeded, the profile of Streetwatch was elevated by regular reports in the Sydney Morning Herald and live interviews on Triple J and Good Morning Australia. We also had the active support of the local State Member of Parliament, Clover Moore, who was close to the Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Ted Pickering. I recall that one Friday evening Clover took Ted around some of the ‘hot spots’ in the electorate. He was to become an important ally.

The first stage of Streetwatch covered the six month period from the start of November 1988 to the end of April 1989. The total number of respondents during this time was 67 (63 men and 4 women). Interviews were still taken after this time by the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service and Lesbian Line. Interviews were only taken with the person directly the subject of the incident. No third-party interviews were accepted.

1990: The Streetwatch Report.

In April 1990 the findings of the first Streetwatch survey were published by GLRL, as The Streetwatch Report. The full title was The Streetwatch Report: A Study into Violence Against Lesbians and Gay Men.

The Streetwatch Report was officially launched in April 1990 by the then Minister for Police and Emergency Services, the Honourable Ted Pickering MLC. This was a significant event. The Minister’s public willingness to launch a report into LGBTIQ hate crime was an important milestone in indicating to the wider Australian community that such crimes were unacceptable and that they required action by government to eradicate them and the social attitudes that supported them.

Responses.

I was unaware at the time of the significance of Streetwatch. This was the start of a long journey for the LGBTIQ community in NSW, in terms of responding to hate crime and ensuring that both legislation and government services supported its eradication.

I responded intuitively to the urgency of the times. I didn’t have a ‘theory of change’ but I now realise I adopted the approach I’d learnt over the years as a community development worker in the North of England and then in Inner City Sydney. My instinct was not to organise a rally or demonstration but to mobilise our own community organisations and to realise awareness in the wider community. I saw creating an evidence base and getting traction in the mainstream media as critical components to this.

I had a few unexpected responses to the project at the time. One was from my closest friend Brian McGahen who was for a time President of Mardi Gras and then a City Councillor. He mocked my data collection approach at the time – though a few years later he readily acknowledged the success of the strategy.

Dr Gary Cox, 9 January 2024.

Ending hate.

Boomers, as we know, eliminating gender-based violence and hate related violence against LGBTIQ people, as well as racial, and other types of prejudice related violence, is possible. Violence is a human action, which means that an alternative human action to violence is possible, which in turn means that prevention is a smart investment.

And remember, you can access This Boomers Life., on Facebook.

LGBTI hate crimes: Taking a stand against abuse of power.