Queensland standardises, lowers sexual age of consent to 16

The legal sexual age of consent in Queensland has dropped to 16 from 18. On Thursday, the State Parliament also replaced the word “sodomy” with “anal intercourse” in the state’s Criminal Code in a bid to remove the stigma gay and bisexual men face.

Under the old laws, the age of consent for anal sex in Queensland is 18, while it is 16 for all other sexual acts. Queensland is the only state in Australia that has different age of consent for anal and vaginal sex.

In May 2016, health experts considered a change to the Criminal Code 1899, pointing out that standardising the age of consent to all sexual acts would improve sexual health outcomes. They believed that the old laws led people to feel compelled to withhold their sexual history from health practitioners out of fear of legal consequences.

“Withholding this information could have serious implications for a young person’s medical treatment, particularly as unprotected anal intercourse is the highest risk behaviour for transmission of HIV,” Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Cameron Dick said in a statement.

The Criminal Code will also be amended to replace the outdated term of “sodomy” with “anal intercourse.”

The reform was welcomed by Michael Scott, the executive director of the Queensland AIDS Council. He said lowering the age of consent would remove healthcare access barriers for everyone.

While QLD Opposition health spokesman John-Paul Langbroek supported the change, he said it was lacking.

“While the bill before us mentions time and time again that it will work to provide information to support safe and healthy sexual relationships, upon closer inspection the Queensland Sexual Health Strategy actually contains little to no detail on how this will be delivered,” he said, explaining that the legislation has no real detail on how to better inform and educate young people.

“There is also no information in the Queensland Sexual Health Strategy that mentions advice about education programs that refer to physical side-effects of sexual activity on bodies that may not have developed completely or the mental health aspect.”

Federal LNP QLD backbencher George Christensen, on the other hand, was concerned that the change would pave way for older men to groom 16-year-old boys for sex.

“So the State Labor government just made it legal for 50-year-old men to have sex with 16-year-old boys,” he wrote on Facebook.