2025 LGBTQ rights update: Mixed results in Oceania

One of a series of updates about LGBTQ rights internationally, region by region

LGBTQ rights journalist Rob Salerno, an editor for Erasing 76 Crimes, surveys the status of LGBTQ rights and marriage equality in this series. (Click here to subscribe to his LGBTQ Global newsletter.)

Map of LGBT rights in Oceania. BLUE: Same-sex marriage legal. PURPLE: Some foreign same-sex marriages recognized. GREEN: At least some protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. YELLOW: Sodomy illegal. RED: Constitution bans same-sex marriage

Fiji: In a sad development, a trans doctor was murdered in an apparent hate crime, which led to calls for tolerance from the prime minister. No major legislative or policy changes seem to have come of it, however.

Vanuatu: Parliament passed a constitutional reform that reportedly recognizes on the “fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals who are male or female at birth.” Last I saw, the reform was referred to the supreme court by the president, who hadn’t yet signed it, over objections to other sections that dealt with democratic functions. I can’t find any further updates, and even the government of Vanuatu web sites only list versions of the constitution from 2020 (though there was definitely a reform passed in 2023, so who knows how far behind they are?).

Vanuatu also joined the Cluster Munitions Convention.

Bougainville: As the territory plans for its expected independence from Papua New Guinea in 2027, a constituent assembly drafted a new constitution that included a broad anti-discrimination clause that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, and a gender-neutral definition of marriage. Let’s see if that holds. So far, it’s also unclear what laws it will inherit from PNG, but if it draws the penal code, that will include a sodomy law.

Tonga: Parliament passed a bill that explicitly prohibits same-sex marriage, while raising the marriage age to 18. Sodomy was already illegal in Tonga, and same-sex marriage was already banned under common law.

Tonga also joined the Ottawa Treaty banning land mines, as did the Marshall Islands. On a related note, Marshall Islands also joined the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, and Kiribati joined the Biological Weapons Convention.

New Zealand: The Conservative government initiated a ban on gender care for minors late in 2025. The government also ordered Sport NZ to scrap its transgender inclusive policies.

New Zealand will hold elections before the end of 2026, and polls indicate Labor could be back in charge.

In a more positive development, it was discovered that the NZ-associated state Niue quietly decriminalized gay sex last year. To this day, I still can’t find the text of the law that was passed and the entire Niue government web site is down as of press time, but I’m taking the word of Human Dignity Trust, which broke the story last summer. Niue was the last part of New Zealand with a sodomy law, after the Cook Islands decriminalized it in 2023.

Australia: Australia’s Labor government managed to mark off a couple of big achievements for LGBT rights last year. First, it passed sweeping hate crime legislation with protections for “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.” It also updated Medicare regulations to cover IVF treatments (but not surrogacy) for same-sex couples and individuals. The government also approved new regulations ending the ban on blood and plasma donations by men who have sex with men, which will come into effect in mid-2026.

Outright launches important reports on LGBTQ rights in every country

At the state level, Victoria passed an anti-vilification law, with similar protections as above, which takes effect next year, and Tasmania passed an LGBT-inclusive hate crime law. Now, only Northern Territory and Western Australia lack LGBT hate crime laws.

Western Australia finally abolished its ban on same-sex couples accessing surrogacy – the last state to do so.

On the other hand, Queensland issued a ban on gender care for minors. The ban was immediately challenged in court, struck down, and then reinstated by the minister, and is now once again being challenged in court.

Laws allowing gender self-identification passed last year came into effect in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

Map of states banning conversion therapy in Australia (pink).

Bans on conversion therapy that were passed in New South Wales and South Australia last year took effect in 2025. Bans have been proposed in Tasmania and Western Australia – the last two states where, along with Northern Territory, it’s legal – but haven’t moved forward this year. A once-promised federal ban has been abandoned by the Labor government, which believes it is a matter for the states.