As Sydney breaks into historic Mardi Gras celebrations, history of a different kind is being made by a special commission inquiry into LGBTQI hate crimes.
On Friday, the inquiry probed the 1985 disappearance of 27-year-old French national Gilles Mattaini, who at the time shared a unit with his partner Jacques Musy in Bondi.
The pair met in Paris in 1978 and were happy working and living together in Australia for seven years, Mr Musy told a coronial inquest in 2002.