Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I want to thank the Minister of Justice for her motion and the bill that she is bringing before the House today and for her personal leadership in bringing this important matter before us. It is hard from a perspective of 2017 to comprehend a world in which it was a crime for two adult men to love one another. It is harder still to imagine the feelings of anxiety fear despair and depression that such a law engendered.I cannot say it better than one of the submitters on Wiremu Demchick's petition. He quoted a man whose conviction forced him to resign from the army. These are his words: This conviction still leads after 53 years to self-hatred worthlessness unjustified guilt and shame. To relieve the anguish and pain chronic drinking and self-destruction took control over the next 10-15 years until the realization that I wasn't a two headed monster and there were many others like me throughout the world." He goes on: "I love my country but live in fear of being 'found out' of further humiliation panic attacks when I see a uniformed police officer and a general feeling of being unworthy to be myself something few others would understand. Should this petition be … approved it would allow me at this late point in my life to respect myself and feel some dignity in my final years." We owe him and thousands like him not just an apology but our respect and a sense of dignity. This apology and this bill begin to do that.Two weekends ago I had the honour of attending a service to mark the 50th anniversary of the delivery of a sermon by Rev. Godfrey Wilson at St Peter's Church on Willis Street in June 1967 highlighting the treatment of homosexuals. It was a radical call for acceptance and inclusion at that time. The core of the sermon was about a man named John who is met by a prison chaplain. John is an able person and intelligent. He works in a bank but he is now in prison. He had found love with Colin and they had moved into a flat together. It was not easy. There were tensions and quarrels but there was also love. After being together a year the landlord gave them notice. Another tenant had complained about pansies in the building. In the stress that followed the relationship between John and Colin ended. John became depressed and his life spiralled down until he was imprisoned for 12 months for his homosexual activities. John said to the chaplain: "If you fall in love and marry that's fine. But if I fall in love and want to share it that's perversion and must be persecuted and punished. Do you wonder that I have thought of suicide? What is there for me? Who cares about me?".Let us be clear. The illegality of homosexuality the arrests and the imprisonments and the fear of that happening did not just ruin lives and destroy potential; it killed people. Hundreds or possibly thousands of lives have been lost because men could not bear the shame the stigma and the hurt caused by this Parliament and the way that society viewed them as criminals. It is for all of that that we must apologise as a Government and as a Parliament to those men who are still alive and to those who have passed on and their families. To those families it is important that you take the opportunity afforded by this legislation to give dignity in death to your relatives that this Parliament did not allow them in life. I also want to speak today to those gay men who were not convicted in this period but rather lived through it in the face of discrimination in the face of hate and in the face of stigma. We also owe all of you an apology. Whether you were convicted or not this law was wrong and made your lives worse. I want to salute the bravery and courage of all of those homosexual men who lived through that and then protested and brought that to the attention of the world. I think of those gay men who in 1986 signed a letter in the New Zealand Herald that put their names to their sexuality and put at risk their lives and their careers. That bravery and courage should be acknowledged today as well.On a personal note to all those men I add my apology but I want to do more than that. I want to say that I respect you I honour you and I stand on your shoulders today. The fact that I as a gay man can be out and proud and a member of Parliament is but a small tribute to you. But more than that next year Alf and I will celebrate 20 years of being together and early the next year 10 years of our civil union and next week we will get to look after our grandchildren in the school holidays. Those are all things that would have been unimaginable to you yet they are your legacy. We owe to you as well that we will continue to fight for inclusion and fairness for all in our society.Turning to the bill itself in the last 30 years much has been achieved from homosexual law reform to the Human Rights Act civil unions and marriage equality and it was right that those things were done but now is the right time to make this wrong right and expunge for all time those unwarranted and hurtful convictions. Creating a process to do this is going to be difficult. Other countries and jurisdictions have grappled with how to make this work. I look forward to a select committee process on this bill that finds a process that is as fair and as quick as it can be.In the UK they have found categories of convictions that are easily identifiable as simply being the result of lewd conduct. I acknowledge in New Zealand it is not as easy to separate that out and we need look no further than the life of one of our greatest authors Frank Sargeson for this. Frank began life as Norris Davey a gay man. Norris had a number of casual relationships with men and in the late 1920s in Wellington he went home with another man named Leonard Hollobon. Police had been monitoring Mr Hollobon and burst into his room when he and Frank were in bed together. They were arrested for committing indecent assault. They were of course not but rather they were two consenting adults. In any event in return for a suspended sentence Frank was convinced to testify that he was an innocent party whereas Mr Hollobon got 5 years' hard labour at New Plymouth Prison. How on earth do we untangle cases such as this where everything is not as it appears? I think the committee will need to work hard to find a process that is not unnecessarily burdensome and that in it has an element of trust in those who survived and their families.I wanted in my final period of time to look towards the future. The other issue that the committee is going to have to deal with is that of compensation. This is a fraught issue. I know that in other countries—particularly in Germany in just the last few weeks—they have established systems of compensation. I encourage the committee to look carefully at this issue to see what is possible and to even consider the option of being a little creative about the possibility of using some form of funding and money to support those who come out today and those who grapple with their gender identity today because what we should do on this occasion today is not just apologise for the wrongs of the past but make a commitment to take the journey from our current tolerance of difference and diversity to one of acceptance embracing and celebrating diversity.For all of the legislation that we have passed and the opportunities we have created we are not there yet because even today the shame and hurt of being different from the majority still exists. Young people are still given the message that being who they are and simply being in love is something that the rest of society is tolerating putting up with or allowing. That is not good enough. Today not just gay men but lesbian bisexual transgender intersex and all the colours of the rainbow need to know that we love them for who they are and the rich and amazing contributions that they make. Today is a day to celebrate progress but if there is chance to make right that wrong of the past we must give the ultimate legacy of a country that includes embraces and cares for all our people."