The controversial Ladies Lounge at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art will be permitted to reopen and continue to refuse entry to men following a decision by the state’s Supreme Court that found it was not in breach of anti-discrimination law.

On Friday morning, Acting Justice Shane Marshall overturned an April decision by the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which had found the Ladies Lounge in breach of Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998.

The Ladies Lounge, a small, curtained-off, art-filled space open only to women, has been closed since May, following the tribunal’s decision.

The lounge’s legal saga began when a NSW man, Jason Lau, complained to the tribunal after being denied entry to the lounge when he visited Mona in April last year. Lau represented himself at the tribunal hearing in March, appearing via video link. He argued that he had been discriminated against on the basis of his gender.

In April of this year, the tribunal ruled in Lau’s favour and ordered Mona to either close the Ladies Lounge, remove it, reform it, or allow men to enter.

The artist behind the Ladies Lounge, Kirsha Kaechele, wife of Mona owner David Walsh, considered her options. Letting men into the space was not one of them, as that would run counter to the very point of the artwork, which comments on the historic and ongoing exclusion of women from situations and places, especially places of power and privilege.

Kaechele closed the Ladies Lounge and appealed to the Supreme Court of Tasmania.

During the appeal last Tuesday, Mona’s counsel Catherine Scott argued that the tribunal had erred in its decision by failing to properly apply section 26 of Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Act 1998, which allows discrimination on the grounds of promoting equal opportunity for a disadvantaged group of people. Scott cited the Australian Government Status of Women Report Card 2024, released in March, as evidence of women’s ongoing disadvantage.