King AnnetteHon ANNETTE KING (Labour—Rongotai): This is a red-letter day. It is a day that is both noteworthy and will be memorable for many—memorable for gay men persecuted and prosecuted for having consensual sex with another man and for men who were isolated and alienated and were forced to seek relationships in places like public toilets in secrecy and in fear. This day will be memorable for family and friends who have waited since the passage of the Homosexual Law Reform Bill on 11 July 1986—31 years on. It is 31 years since a politician in this House told gay men to go back to the sewers where they belonged and 31 years since consensual sex stopped being a criminal offence with terms of imprisonment.There are very few of us left in this House today who supported homosexual law reform back in 1986. It is so much easier now I have to say. Trevor Mallard Peter Dunne and I are the last remaining members who voted for that bill. I also want to acknowledge Ruth Dyson who did a lot of work for this bill working for Fran Wilde. She was stuck in Fran's house for week after week working on submissions.For members today it is hard to imagine the fierceness of the debate of the time. There was month after month of foul rhetoric and intense pressure put on members of Parliament not to vote for the bill. There were the threats and the months of filibuster by the opponents. I was a new member of Parliament in a rural seat in New Zealand—the seat of Horowhenua—and I was told that if I voted for homosexual law reform I would lose my seat. In fact at the following election I increased my majority.I want to commend the courage of the campaigners for reform from before the Homosexual Law Reform Bill was passed right through to today. They are our heroes. They were on the streets. They campaigned they petitioned and they never stopped. Today knowing that Fran Wilde is not in New Zealand at the moment I want to commend her courage. She was perhaps the most courageous member of Parliament whom I have ever met.So on 11 July 1986 a bill was passed. The war was won but not the battle. That is taking longer. There are still human rights to be addressed and I just want to mention one particular group: transsexual people and transgender people. I think there is still too much discrimination and too much stigmatisation of this very vulnerable group and I look forward to when we can remove that discrimination for these people as well.I commend the Minister for bringing the bill and the apology to this House. I hope that it was a report that I sent to her—which I am going to read part of in a moment—from one of my constituents that led her to change her mind about having an expunging bill because she did write to me in April last year saying that she had no plans to have such a bill. I sent her a signed statement from a constituent who has been visiting me since 1998 and I have to say that since 1998 I have been advocating for there to be such a bill. I am sorry that we could not and did not in our clean slate bill of 2004 include such a provision because between 1980 and 1986 the Ministry of Justice shows that just in that small period alone there were 879 convictions for men who had consensual sex with men.My constituent came to me once again 18 months ago and I said: Put down exactly what you went through and I will give it to the Minister." We both signed the statement. I am not going to identify my constituent and I am not going to read all of it but I want you to hear this part: "I met X at the end of 1968 when I was 18 years old in my first year at university. I had known for several years that I was gay and we began a relationship and I frequently stayed overnight in his flat. An ex-flatmate informed the police that we were queers. That night we went to bed and we were woken at 5 a.m. by a torch being flashed in our faces and being gruffly told by two male police officers to get out of bed. We were arrested and taken to the police station."The end result was X and I were charged and convicted of indecent assault on each other and we were sentenced to 18 months' probation. We were directed by the magistrate to never see each other again to report regularly to the CIB office and to take psychiatric help as directed. I was sent to a psychiatric hospital where I was psychoanalysed and after 2 weeks I was told by the psychologist that I was more sane than most people outside. But my self-esteem had been shattered. I was very upset and my parents were troubled by the arrest."Because of the deep embarrassment I have felt about the conviction I have never travelled to a country which would require a visa. I have never worked overseas which I would very much like to do. I have had no other convictions since 1969. It may seem strange to somebody who has not experienced this but I feel I am haunted by it. I think about it every day. Every night I spend time locking doors and windows before I go to bed to ensure no intruder will enter again while I am asleep. "I have never told anybody but at times I feel unworthy wondering what people would say about somebody if they knew about the charge 'indecent assault on a male" and not understanding what really happened. For 28 years I did not feel able to discuss it with anybody except two friends."This has been signed by my constituent but also by his lover at the time and I hope that this bill will expunge this man's conviction because that is what it must do. I am not saying it is going to be easy because there is a process that must be gone through and there is going to be a decision made by somebody else that it has to be expunged but I hope that we are on the right track with this bill.I also applaud the apology. It is a very fulsome apology. I would just put one little note in here. I found it sort of ironic that on the day of this apology the Deputy Prime Minister has said she does not believe in mass apologies and she thinks only of individual ones when it comes to those who are asking for help and who have been discriminated against in institutions.But this is I say to Minister Amy Adams a very good apology and we are a generous people. We have apologised before. A Labour Government apologised to the Chinese in New Zealand who were forced to pay a poll tax because they were Chinese. We apologised to Samoa for the suppression of its nationalistic movement when it was under our rule. We have apologised for other things. We are a generous people.This is an apology that is long overdue. I know that it will be welcomed by so many people. I certainly welcome it and in my dying days of being in this Parliament I am just so pleased to see that we have such an apology and a bill to finish this part of what has been discrimination over so many decades—in fact generations. So I commend the Minister and I commend this House and hope that every member of it will vote for the bill and support the apology. The people who have suffered for so long deserve nothing less."