*Age Of
Consent & Legal Sexual Activity for the State of
21st December 2011 Letter from Attorney-General Paul Lucas. Regarding 1st
December 2011 email in which I praised the Bligh Government for passing the
Civil Partnerships Bill, but also requested that they show the same level of
commitment to equity by enacting equal age of consent reform. The response from
Senior Policy Advisor Jasmina Joldie
says, in essence, that the Premier is the one who has
decided that the Party will continue to follow her public statement that the
Government has no plans for enacting equal age of consent reform.
However the only time that Premier Bligh has
ever made any public statement on this issue was on Madonna
King’s radio show talkback on ABC612 on 27th October 2007 , when
young gay Brisbane man Peter Ridgley had asked her "I was wondering when the Queensland Government was
going to change the age of consent laws between differing sexual activities
from 18 for anal intercourse to 16 to be in line with vaginal
intercourse?" and she replied: “Peter, our
Government has no plans to consider that issue. So I guess that the answer to
your question is that there is no time frame because we have no plans in
relation to that.”
So that’s hardly a public statement by which the Premier can ever claim
to be obliged to stand in perpetuity.
Click
here to view a 1Mb pdf file of a scan of the original
letter
OCR scanned text:
Queensland Government
Office of the
Attorney-General
Minister for Local Government
and Special Minister of State
Our ref AG/11/05228; AG/11/05437; 541466/1
21 DEC 2011
Mr
John Frame
82 Main Avenue
WAVELL HEIGHTS QLD 4012
Dear Mr Frame
Re: Equal age of consent reform
Thank you for your emails of 27 October and 6 November 2011 to the Honourable Paul Lucas MP, Attorney-General, Minister for
Local Government and Special Minister of State. The Attorney-General has asked
that I respond on his behalf.
I note your commitment to this issue and am aware that
you have written in similar terms to previous Attorneys-General on this topic.
As indicated in the previous responses to you, the Premier and Minister for
Reconstruction has publicly stated that the Queensland
Government has no plans to make policy amendments in this area.
I note your support for the recently introduced
Private Member’s Bill regarding civil partnerships. You will be pleased to note
that the Civil Partnerships Bill 2011 was passed by the Queensland Parliament
on 30 November 2011.
The Civil Partnerships Act 2011 allows couples,
of either sex, to register their relationship as a civil partnership, which is recognised in law as a formal relationship without further
proof of its existence. I expect that the Act will commence in the first half
of 2012 once appropriate implementation arrangements have been finalised.
Thank you for once again writing to the
Attorney-General. I trust this information is of assistance.
Yours sincerely
Jasmina Joldie
Senior Policy Advisor
Level 12 Executive
Building
100 George Street Brisbane 4000
P0 Box 15009 City East
Queensland 4002 Australia
Telephone +61 7 3224 4600
Facsimile +61 7 3224 4781
Email attorneygeneral@ministerial.qld.gov.au
ABN 65 959 415 158