By Rachael Dexter
If it wasn’t for an overexposed grainy photograph of five men, hands against a brick wall in a nightclub, a pivotal chapter in the history of Melbourne’s queer culture may have passed without due scrutiny.
“That photo changed everything,” said Gavin Campbell, co-founder of Tasty – an underground queer party that ran on Saturday nights in the early to mid-1990s out of the Commerce Club in Flinders Lane.
The raid image that Tasty co-founder Gavin Campbell describes as the photo that changed everything.
“That photo outraged the community all around Australia; it was on the front page of The Age.”
This week marks 30 years since the Tasty raid, which is referred to in the LGBTQ community as Melbourne’s Stonewall moment – referencing the Stonewall uprising in the US in the late 1960s that launched America’s gay rights movement.
This weekend an all-night party is bringing together the queer community to remember the best of their beloved former club.
About 2am on August 7, 1994, at least 40 police looking for drugs raided the club and detained, strip-searched and cavity-searched 463 patrons and staff in what police dubbed Operation Maze – a reference to a downstairs sex-on-premises area in the club.
Hostess and performer “Miss Vic” (Victoria Brown, left), Tasty manager Gerard O’Connor and co-founder and DJ Gavin Campbell prepare Inflation nightclub for the 30th-anniversary party.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The raid was condemned by the queer community and politicians from both sides of politics. Civil liberty groups called it excessive, homophobic and an abuse of human rights that humiliated hundreds of innocent people for no clear reason.
“Police were yelling at us and shining torches in our faces whenever we moved,” one patron told The Age at the time. “They verbally abused us and told us to shut up.”
Melbourne man Simon Peavey was a 20-year-old who had not even come out as gay to his family when the raid occurred.
He described Tasty as a sexually liberated place where queer people were safe to party with abandon.
Homosexuality had been decriminalised in Victoria only as recently as 1980, and it was still outlawed in Tasmania at the time.
Patrons say Tasty was known for its distinctive electronica music and was frequented by as many well-heeled lawyers and doctors as it was models, photographers, stylists and VIPs.
“It was exciting. You always had such a good time because people were extravagant in their dress and they were free in their behaviour,” Peavey remembers.
A sober P-plater who was designated-driver that night, he was one of hundreds subjected to a humiliating strip and cavity search.
“You don’t forget that,” he said.
Performer and club hostess “Miss Vic” (Victoria Brown), who was working behind the bar that night and one of a smaller number of women at the event, was also strip-searched.
“It was horrible. I felt really sorry for the boys [in particular] – to be bent over, stripped and the light shone up your bum in a circle. It was shocking,” she said. “People were just terrified. Absolutely terrified.”
The mass raid resulted in only a handful of drug-related arrests, but all charges were later dropped.
A photo reportedly taken by a punter on a disposable camera was published in the days after the raid and led to a major scandal for Victoria Police. A scathing ombudsman’s inquiry found the mass strip-searching was “totally unreasonable”, leading to legal settlements and eventually a formal apology from Victoria Police in 2014.
Then Liberal premier Jeff Kennett described Victoria Police’s actions as extreme and disturbing, and the episode blew up relations between the gay community and police.
An Age article about the Tasty raid dated Dec 1, 1994.Credit: The Age
Lawyer Gary Singer was a 38-year-old patron at Tasty and was also strip and cavity-searched. He ended up leading legal action in the County Court on behalf of up to 270 patrons, which cost Victoria Police up to $6 million in settlements for false imprisonment and assault.
“As a lawyer I knew that the police had abused their power and that it was best not to argue with police when they were attacking everyone – it was best to do that through the legal process,” said Singer, who went on to become deputy mayor of Melbourne.
Many people never recovered from the ramifications of the night. Some were forcibly outed to employers and families and lost their jobs.
An image from a Tasty party night in 1992.
Gerard O’Connor, who was bar manager the night of the raid, is one of those involved in hosting a 30-year anniversary party on Saturday night to mark the occasion as a milestone in the fight for LGBTQ rights in Victoria.
The party across four levels at Inflation nightclub will feature 90 DJs from the club’s heyday, drag and burlesque performances and a re-creation of Tasty’s infamous “maze”.
“Obviously we want everyone to have the time of their life like we used to do,” said O’Connor.
“You don’t need to lecture people, but it’s also important to remember that freedoms we have today come from some adversity from the past – the past always informs our present.”
A Victoria Police spokesman also acknowledged the raid, saying in a statement: “While we have made great strides in recognising, supporting and celebrating LGBTIQA+ communities since the incident, we know there is still work to be done.”
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