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Salient. Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 42 No. 19. August 6 1979

The Foundation of the NZ Homosexual Law Reform Society

The Foundation of the NZ Homosexual Law Reform Society

In New Zealand, 1957, the year in which the Wolfenden Report was published, heralded a revision of the Crimes Act 1908. In 1959, the Minister of Justice, Mr H.G.R. Mason, moved by the suicide of a homosexual friend in Auckland and acting independently and not as the result of any report or recommendation, sought to introduce a lesser penalty for homosexual acts where they took place between consenting adults. Mr Mason's proposal had, unfortunately, some anomalous effects and some of his opponents used this fact to accuse him of master-minding a secret conspiracy to legalize homosexual conduct, a suggestion which predictably attracted wide publicity. Mr Mason, fed up with the bother, directed a reversion to the existing law which, with one or two minor modifications became the relevant clauses of the Crimes Act 1961.

Less than a week after the Crimes Bill had received its third reading the New Zealand Methodist Conference called for legal toleration of homosexual acts as a first step towards a constructive response to the homosexual's invidious social situation. In 1963 the New Zealand Howard League began to apply pressure upon the Minister, Mr Hanan. It was joined in 1964 by the National Council of Women, whose argument for reform was based upon a defence of civil liberties, and upon the impropriety of imprisoning homosexual offenders, a point conceded by the Justice Department for what is by now 15 years.

By 1967 a group of individuals, mostly churchmen and professional people, who had been liaising with the Howard League on how best to follow up its earlier initiatives, called a public meeting in Wellington to launch a Wolfenden Association. What emerged was the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society (NZHLRS) whose aims was to secure reform of the law whereby homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should no longer constitute a criminal offence. Events conspired to suggest that the Society's life might be a short one. Extensive media coverage and public support from diverse social groupings and public figures augured well for a movement spurred on by the British reform, barely three months after the NZHLRS had been formed.