The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Australian state of South Australia are advanced and well-established. South Australia has had a chequered history with respect to the rights of LGBT people. Initially, the state was a national pioneer of LGBT rights in Australia, being the first in the country to decriminalise homosexuality and to introduce a non-discriminatory age of consent for all sexual activity. Subsequently, the state fell behind other Australian jurisdictions in areas including relationship recognition and parenting, with the most recent law reforms regarding the recognition of same-sex relationships, LGBT adoption and strengthened anti-discrimination laws passing in 2016 and going into effect in 2017.
Since 2007, same-sex couples have been able to enter into domestic partnership agreements and since 2017 they have been able to enter into registered relationships. Changes to the law in 2017 also mean that same-sex couples have legal equity with respect to adoption, surrogacy and assisted reproductive technology rights. South Australia was the last state in the country to abolish the gay panic defence, passing reforms through its Parliament in December 2020 that went into effect in April 2021. Hate crime laws that explicitly include "sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex characteristics" within South Australian sentencing legislation were passed and implemented in November 2021. The state parliament recently passed legislation explicitly banning gay conversion therapy in October 2024, effective on 1 April 2025.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in the state since December 2017, after passage of the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 in the Australian Parliament. The 2017 Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, designed to gauge public support for same-sex marriage in Australia, returned a 62.5% "Yes" response in South Australia.
Laws regarding sexual activity As with other former British colonies, South Australia originally derived its criminal law from the United Kingdom. This included the prohibition of "buggery" and "gross indecency" between males. Similarly to the United Kingdom, lesbianism was never criminalised under state law.
When he was the South Australian Attorney-General in the mid-1960s, Don Dunstan was the first Australian politician that attempted to repeal homosexual offences, but did not proceed at the time due to a perceived lack of public support. The murder of George Duncan, a gay Australian law lecturer at the University of Adelaide on 10 May 1972, with the police accused of his death, shifted public attitudes in favour of legalising homosexuality. That same year, the Dunstan Labor Government introduced a consenting adults in private defence in South Australia. This defence was later introduced as a bill by Murray Hill, father of former defence minister Robert Hill. This was a limited reform in that it retained the homosexuality offences, simply offered a narrow exception and was not intended to achieve legal parity of treatment, with Hill maintaining that homosexuality should not receive social approval.
In 1975, under the premiership of Dunstan, South Australia went further with the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Amendment Act 1975 and became the first state or territory in Australia to offer equality under criminal law, repealing homosexual offences, decriminalising male homosexuality and providing an equal age of consent for sexual intercourse at 17 years of age.
Historical conviction expungement South Australia was the first jurisdiction in Australia to develop a scheme which provides for criminal convictions of historical private consensual homosexual sexual activity to be cleared from a person's criminal record under the Spent Convictions (Decriminalised Offences) Amendment Act 2013. The act allows those with these historical convictions to apply to have them not appear on their record after a number of crime-free years. This is not a true expungement scheme because instead of being automatically erased from a criminal record upon application, the conviction is treated as "spent" if the person commits no crimes for a set number of years. The legislation gained royal assent on 5 December, and came into force on 22 December 2013.
Recognition of same-sex relationships South Australian law allows same-sex couples to enter into marriage, domestic partnership agreements and/or registered relationships.
Same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage became legal in South Australia, and in the rest of Australia, in December 2017, after the Federal Parliament passed a law legalising same-sex marriage.
Domestic partnerships South Australia first recognised the relationships of same-sex couples in the form of domestic partnerships. Laws which came into effect in 2007 allow same-sex couples and any two people to make a written agreement called a Domestic Partnership Agreement about their living arrangements. These laws (and others passed in 2003, 2011 and 2017) provided same-sex couples with most of the same rights as married couples, in areas such as joint finances, superannuation property rights, next of kin and hospital visitation rights and elsewhere.
The Statutes Amendment (Domestic Partners) Act 2006, which took effect on 1 June 2007, amended 97 Acts, dispensing with the term "de facto" and categorising couples as "domestic partners". This meant same-sex couples and any two people who live together are now covered by the same laws. Same-sex couples may make a written agreement called a Domestic Partnership Agreement about their living arrangements. This may be prepared at any time and is legal from the time it is made, but the couples must meet other requirements, such as joint commitments, before being recognised as domestic partners. Until the bill's passage, South Australia was the only state or territory to not recognise same-sex couples in legislation. The legislation passed the Parliament in December 2006.
Under state law, equal superannuation entitlements for same-sex couples are provided for with the Statutes Amendment (Equal Superannuation Entitlements for Same Sex Couples) Act 2003 . Equal rights in superannuation matters were eventually federalised in 2009..
Further legislation in 2011, the Statutes Amendment (De Facto Relationships) Act 2011 , recognised same-sex couples in asset forfeiture, property and stamp duty applications.
Further legislation in 2017, the Statutes Amendment (Registered Relationships) Act 2017 , recognises the domestic partnerships of same-sex couples who enter into a registered relationship (see below) in 13 additional pieces of legislation, equalising treatment for such couples in matters relating to inheritance, correctional facilities, the South Australian Supreme Court, the first home buyers grant, surveying, governor's pensions, civil liability, and conveyancing. The bill passed the Parliament on 30 March and received royal assent on 26 April 2017. The law went into effect on 1 August 2017.
Civil union proposals South Australia became the first state to consider allowing civil unions for same-sex couples when MP Mark Brindal proposed the Civil Unions Bill 2004 in October 2004. Brindal said, "Same sex attracted people make invaluable contributions to society, and society can no longer afford the hypocrisy to deny them the right to formalise their relationships."
In October 2012, independent MP Bob Such introduced a bill to the Parliament of South Australia called the Civil Partnership Bill 2012. It failed to pass.
Registered partnerships South Australia drew media attention following the death of David Bulmer-Rizzi while on a honeymoon in Adelaide with his husband Marco. Although the two men had validly married in the United Kingdom, this was not recognised under South Australian law with Bulmer-Rizzi's death certificate recording his marital status as "never married" and his father treated as next-of-kin rather than his husband. Premier Jay Weatherill subsequently called Marco Bulmer-Rizzi to offer a personal apology for the state's discrimination and to promise that the law would be updated to ensure state recognition of overseas same-sex marriages in future. The death certificate was also updated to acknowledge the British marriage. The government subsequently sought to address the issue by introducing legislation for a relationship register.
On 22 September 2016, the Relationships Register Bill 2016 was introduced to the House of Assembly. The bill established a registry for relationships, modelled in the same way as other Australian states with domestic partnership registries. Same-sex couples married in jurisdictions which allow same-sex marriage would be able to have their relationships officially recognised under the legislation. The bill also amended legislation to allow same-sex couples equal access to altruistic surrogacy and allow for IVF treatment for single women and lesbian couples.
Substantive debate on the bill in the lower house occurred on 15 November 2016. During committee stage, the bill was essentially divided in two; one bill (referred to as the Statutes Amendment (Surrogacy Eligibility) Bill 2016) comprising elements of the original bill which related to surrogacy and IVF regulations in the state and the other bill (referred to as the Relationships Register (No. 1) Bill 2016) comprising the remaining elements of the original bill which related to the establishment of a relationship register and the recognition of overseas same-sex marriages. The bill passed the House of Assembly on 15 November and proceeded to the Legislative Council. The bill was passed by the Council on 6 December. It received royal assent on 15 December 2016, becoming the Relationships Register Act 2016, and went into effect on 1 August 2017.
Adoption and parenting rights
In June 2026, a bill passed to allow recognition of any parents of a same-sex couple on a child’s birth certificate (not just a “co-parent” recognition implemented by separate legislation back in 2016). The legislation is effective from October 2026, 4 months after assent.
Same-sex adoption Same-sex couples have been able to adopt children in South Australia since February 2017.
Originally, the Adoption Act 1988 allowed only heterosexual couples (both married and de facto) to adopt children. Single individuals were also banned from adoption in South Australia, making it the only place in Australia to have such a restriction.