Mr Johnson's sister Terry Johnson said that Scott White, who pleaded guilty to the murder in January this year, had taken away decades from her brother's life.
"The hateful person who killed Scott has been walking free on this earth for the past 33 years. Thirty-three years that he took away from my baby brother. I believe [White] deserves life in prison."
With White looking on from the NSW Supreme Court dock wearing his prison greens, sister Rebecca Johnson talked about how society in the 1980s had also let down teenagers who thought violence against gay men was acceptable.
"Parents, brothers and sisters, teachers and classmates, authority, culture, somehow Mr White's world reinforced that violence and even killing was OK and maybe that gay men weren't human. That is a profound tragedy," she said on Monday.
Brother Steve Johnson described the death as being too huge and awful to be true, saying his mother had reacted with a wailing cry at the news.
"The wailing is a reliving, it's a howl of death and despair and loss and grief that signifies that a piece of us has departed. It never goes away."
Scott Johnson's partner Michael Noone also gave a statement describing the sheer horror of receiving a call from the police about the death of a loved one.Â
These victim statements were heard after White's former partner Helen White took the stand and described a conversation with her ex-husband about "poofter bashing" in the 1980s.
"He said the only good poofter is a dead poofter, to which I said, 'So you threw him off the cliff'. And he said, 'It's not my fault the dumb c*** ran off the cliff'," she said.
Ms White denied suggestions by White's barrister Belinda Rigg SC that she had only gone to the police because of a $1 million reward offered for information about Mr Johnson's death, and rejected claims she had made up the conversations with her then husband.
In January, White pleaded guilty to the murder before his defence team unsuccessfully tried to reverse the plea. An appeal of White's conviction was filed last month.
The hearing continues.
