[47]The Toonen finding inspired the national Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Act[1] in 1994, promulgated to implement Australia’s international obligations under article 17 of the ICCPR. Article 4(1) of this Act provides that “[s]exual conduct involving only consenting adults acting in private is not to be subject, by or under any law of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory, to any arbitrary interference with privacy within the meaning of Article 17…”. 1994 also saw New South Wales amending its Anti-Discrimination Act[2] to include a provision banning discrimination on the ground of homosexuality. Tasmania repealed the offending sections in its Criminal Code (the subject of the Toonen finding) in 1997. This marked the final decriminalisation of consensual homosexual sex in Australia.
