Police arrested 130 people who defied a council ban on a gay law reform stall at Salamanca Markets in September 1988.

Though Hobart City Council is tipped to support the apology, councillors John Freeman and Darlene Haigh say the ban, which is now credited with giving impetus to Tasmania’s successful gay law reform process, was justified.

Though he refused to speak with MCV, Alderman Freeman told the Hobart Mercury he had no intention of apologising, partly because homosexuality was illegal in 1988.

"It has been said that particular demonstration was about gay law reform but it was about a lot more -- there were pamphlets on sexual technique," Freeman said.

"There were also things promoting high-risk behaviour.”

Alderman Haigh said council was justified in banning the stall because it had received “numerous” complaints.

However, Lenore Tardiff, who ran the markets and signed the stall’s gay law reform petition, contradicted both councillors’ claims.

“I had to follow Council’s directives, and in 88, I got a call from the Council’s administration officer, who told me Council was going to recommend we throw out the law reform stall,” Tardiff told MCV.

“He told me that it was on the sole basis of a phone call from a mother of two who found the stall offensive.

“There followed local national and international press, and it was only then that council would have received a lot of letters. To say they received a lot of letters in the first place is incorrect,” she said.

Tardiff said she never saw evidence of sexually explicit material at the stall.

Claims that the ban was justified by sexually explicit material have previously been denounced in Miranda Morris’ book,  Pink Triangle: The Gay Law Reform Debate in Tasmania, which notes other stallholders displayed T-shirts depicting “drug use, people vomiting, defecating, farting; graphic illustrations of penises, breasts, buttocks; and even bestiality – Wile E. Coyote copulating with the Road Runner”. 

Tasmanian Gay and Lesbian Rights Group co-convenor Rodney Croome, who was arrested four times at Salamanca, told MCV there were “no sexually explicit materials on the stall”.

“There were petitions on gay law reform and pamphlets about why we needed to reform the law. We weren’t advocating for gay sex, we were advocating for its decriminalisation and that’s an important distinction.

“The same alderman made this point 20 years ago: it was wrong then and it is wrong now,” he said.

Croome told MCV an apology would send a positive message about the change that had occurred in Tasmania since Salamanca.

“The council’s ban on the gay law reform stall in 1988 and their order to arrest people who defied that ban was a very traumatic and difficult time for those involved. It hurt a great many people and left a legacy of bitterness which I think an apology would heal,” he said.

Croome also defended his decision to issue a press release on the apology, after the Greater Hobart Coming Out Proud Community Liaison Committee's Julian Punch said he was “seriously concerned” about Croome’s “undiplomatic” statements.

“I feel my public comments on this have not only reflected accurately the decision of the committee but also the reason for that decision, and I would urge Julian to direct his energies towards those who are opposed to an apology rather than people like me who share his goals in this regard.”

Former administrator market Lenore Tardiff backed the call for an apology.   

“The group was asking for changes in the law, and in retrospect that was valid as the law did change,” she said.

“The Council handled it like a bull in a china shop. They handed it very badly and tried to stop calls for human rights to be expressed.

“We all have prejudices, but the way to get over them is to say sorry. And if the whole nation can do that, I don’t see why Hobart City Council can’t do it as well.”

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