The Australian state of Tasmania doesn’t have a good track record when it comes to LGBT issues. It was the last Australian state to stop executing men for sodomy (1863). More than a hundred years later it seemed determined to retain its record for the most socially backward state in the country.

In 1984 the majority of Australian states had moved to decriminalise sex between men. Not so in Tasmania. On December 14th a court sentenced a man to an eight month jail sentence for ‘homosexual conduct’ after he was found having sex with another man in his car. There appear to be no known cases of heterosexuals being jailed for the same thing.

For LGBT people in Tasmania this may have been depressing but it was by no means surprising. It would take an intervention by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1997 to finally get them to bring their laws in line with other Australian states.