00:00This inquiry held a series of hearings over 18 months, and it explored an extremely dark
00:06and painful time in Sydney's history.
00:09It was looking at the period of 1970 to 2010, and many of the witnesses at those hearings
00:14gave evidence about the homophobia, transphobia and prejudice that existed at that time not
00:20only in society generally, but in the New South Wales police force.
00:24Now the inquiry closely examined 34 deaths, many of them were described as lonely and
00:29terrifying, and it found that there was reason to suspect LGBT bias was a factor in 21 cases,
00:36and that it was a factor in four of the cases.
00:39In December, the Commissioner Justice John Sackar gave his final report, and he made
00:4319 recommendations, including that fresh inquests should be held for four of the cases.
00:49Now the New South Wales government has issued its formal response, and it's going to support
00:54all of the 19 recommendations.
00:56The state government here says that this inquiry will be remembered as a crucial step
01:01in coming to terms with the role that the New South Wales government played in these
01:05many tragedies.
01:07Penny Sharp, who is a senior government minister, said in previous decades New South Wales government
01:12institutions set a standard that not only stood by inequality and injustice, but fostered
01:18and at times participated in it.
01:20She also said, we fundamentally failed the victims of these hate crimes and their families,
01:25and we can never let that occur again.
01:28The recommendations also included a review of all unsolved homicides in the decades within
01:33the inquiry's scope, as well as monitoring DNA databases for any matches that might come
01:38up between the database and the evidence that the inquiry established.
01:43In February this year, the Police Commissioner in New South Wales, Karen Webb, issued an
01:47apology to the families of hate crime victims, and she acknowledged that there had been missed
01:52opportunities for investigations in the past.
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