Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

💬 SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website. I will inform the House that no member has approached me indicating their preference for a personal vote.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. I move, That the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

It is with great pride that I stand here to start the debate on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. It gives effect to a Labour Party manifesto commitment at the last election and I want to begin by acknowledging the LGBTQI+ community, our own rainbow caucus, rainbow members of this Parliament, Rainbow Labour, and also our young Labour rainbow members who took a petition to Parliament, I believe, in 2018,

Chlöe Swarbrick: Young Greens.

—as well as the Young Greens, who were there also presenting that petition. I was getting there!

If you look at clause 3 of the bill: “The purpose of this Act is to—(a) prevent harm caused by conversion practices; and (b) [to] promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” It goes to a very fundamental right that we believe all New Zealanders have: to decide who they are or to explore who they are. It’s been very clear over a long period of time that the gay community and those who are exploring their gender identity have suffered extreme harm at attempts to try and change their sexuality or their gender identity. That harm has manifested itself in mental health issues; relationship issues; in some cases, long-term mental health issues; and in some unfortunate cases, suicide attempts and suicide itself.

We want to make a very firm statement that conversion practices do not work. They cause harm for people who are going through the process of being who they are, and that is why this piece of legislation is before this House. The kinds of conversion practices that we’ve seen historically and we’ve heard from engagement with the community have been at the extreme end, the likes of electroconvulsive therapy. Now they more commonly include the likes of practices claiming to be counselling or talk therapy and some faith-based practices involving prayer, fasting, and exorcism.

I know there will be a debate around the issues around religious groups in this first reading. I want to acknowledge the church leaders that we met last week via Zoom, who we gave an indication of the direction of this bill. They said to us that by and large they support the banning of conversion therapies but had some questions about the religious freedoms that they enjoy. And I hope that since the time that we have spoken to them and them seeing the bill, they have seen that we have put in protections for the expression of their religious principles and beliefs, and that is another important protection of right that we want to make sure that is in this bill.

I think everyone in this House has a story about someone that they know or love who has had a difficult time in coming out. I certainly have one of those, and my friend—who I’m not going to go into too much detail about—came out quite late in his life, and I cannot imagine some of the difficulties that people like him and others have gone through to be who they are. And this is why I think this is such an important piece of legislation for the LGBTIQ community, to make sure that they have that right protected and that, again, we prevent the harm that is caused in those communities. Can I also acknowledge my colleague Marja Lubeck for the work that she has done in the previous Parliament to put forward a member’s bill on this issue. I’m sure she’s very pleased that we have got this to this stage to have this first reading. I know she will talk about a lady called Amanda Ashley, who was one of the champions of making sure that this kind of legislation came through this House.

In terms of a conversion practice itself, as it is defined in the bill, it has to be targeted at someone because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity or gender expression and it has to have the intent of changing or suppressing that gender identity or sexual orientation. Again, and depending on the circumstances, it has to be shown that there is harm or serious harm, and then the police do what they normally do and gather an evidentiary base to make sure that they may have a case against a person that may undertake a conversion practice. Then there is another protection in this bill—any matter to go to court is with the consent of the Attorney-General for a court case to proceed. We have deliberately designed this piece of legislation to make sure that it is only the serious cases that will ever make their way to a court room. There are also civil protections, civil provisions, within this bill to make sure that any issues that are not considered serious or criminal will be taken through the Human Rights Commission, and there are remedies there as well.

Again, I would stress the purpose of this bill: it is to prevent harm and to make sure we are encouraging those respectful and open discussions about people’s sexual orientation and their gender identity. At the announcement last week, we also said that we will take the select committee very seriously. We will watch those submissions, we will watch the submissions and the tone of the submissions that are made by other political parties, and we will make this bill better if we think we can, but the fundamental purpose of this bill is to make sure we are preventing harm in our community when people are having their fundamental right of being who they are, or exploring who they are, impacted. Again, the mental health impacts, long-lasting mental health impacts, have for far too long plagued our rainbow community. It is well time that these conversion practices were banned.

National supports the core intention of this thought. People should be free to be who they want to be and to love who they want to love. There is one major sticking point, however, which means that although we want to be supportive, we are opposing this law until it is amended. It is very clear in Kris Faafoi’s interview on Newstalk ZB with Heather du Plessis-Allan, and any plain reading of this bill, that good parenting will be criminalised—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: Rubbish. Absolute nonsense.

—facing up to five years’—it is exactly what it is saying—imprisonment for being parents to children under 18. The members opposite yell at me, but that is what Kris Faafoi said on Newstalk ZB, and it is wrong.

Parents should be allowed to be parents and to explore sexuality and gender with their children. But under this law, if a mum tells her 12-year-old son or daughter, “Taihoa, before you go on puberty blockers or other hormone treatment, wait till you’re 18.”, that mum will be breaking the law. National believes there must be an exemption for parents.

💬 Simeon Brown: So angry on the other side.

They are very angry on the other side, but I just want to address them quite clearly: the definition in clause 5 is incredibly broad and any exemption for parents is nowhere in this bill.

It is important to note that this law is broader than sexual orientation; it also covers gender identity and expression. This latter area is more complex than the former. It can involve medical interventions—blockers, hormones, surgery. These treatments are innovative and experimental. They involve long-term risks and consequences. And, in other countries, there are growing numbers of young people who have become adults who regret transitioning and seek to de-transition, with mixed success.

Do we really want a Government intervening with the criminal law, five years in prison in conversations and decisions about medical treatment and wellbeing that parents have and make with their children? I don’t think so, and I don’t think that, actually, the majority of Kiwi parents do either. This bill lacks common sense. It is an ideological overreach. There must be an exemption for parents.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! There are a lot of interjections in this House. May I remind members that they can take a call, and when they make their own call they can express their views. I would like to hear this speech, whether or not you agree with it. Please, can we have order in this House.

I’m influenced by a signature case from a full bench of three judges of the High Court of England and Wales: Keira Bell and the Tavistock clinic. It came out in December of last year—and I acknowledge it is under appeal in the UK, albeit it is the current law of the land in that much more significant, in terms of population, nation. It involved Keira Bell, 23, who wanted to transition from female to male. Ms Bell, aged 16, went to the Tavistock clinic and was quickly prescribed puberty blockers and testosterone, and at 20 had a double mastectomy. She has since, however, begun de-transitioning, and says, “It was heartbreaking to realise I’d gone down the wrong path.” I appreciate that there will be many other experiences that are different to that, but that was hers.

The other claimant in the court case was a “Mrs A”, a mother of a 15-year-old autistic girl awaiting treatment at the clinic. She said, “My fear is … not that [she’s transitioning]—it’s that she gets it wrong.” The mother said that it was “frightening” that there was so little exploration of why a child might be feeling they were the wrong sex before puberty blockers were given. Keira and the mum were representative claimants arguing that the clinic should have challenged the girls more over their decisions to transition to a male as teens; something very much against the spirit and the letter of this law, which is so-called affirmation only, rather than allowing genuine exploration.

The court held that there are long-term risks and consequences from the administration of puberty blockers and the clinical interventions being made, and “given that the treatment is as yet innovative and experimental, we recognise that clinicians may well regard these as cases where the authorisation of the court should be sought prior to commencing the clinical treatment.” The court decided that under-13s were “highly unlikely” to be able to consent to blockers. At ages 14 and 15, it was “[still] doubtful”, and at 16 and 17, the courts should still decide.

Yet under this law, in New Zealand’s much smaller jurisdiction, it will be a criminal offence for parents to raise any concerns; they’ll only be able to affirm—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: No, that is not what the bill says.

—and that is wrong. And I say, under the constant barracking from Grant Robertson, that his Government, tragically, in this term, without the blockage of Mr Peters’ New Zealand First Party, has done a fine line of coming to this House and saying one thing that is motherhood and apple pie—and I accept the intent of this bill—but, actually, in the letter of the law, it does something quite different.

I intend on writing to Kris Faafoi shortly. Given the good intention of this bill, National wants to work with him so that we can support it. But, regrettably, we cannot, in good conscience, while it criminalises parents for being parents, while it intervenes in families with the criminal law over conversations and decisions about medical treatment that should be for them. We are opposing this bill until Kris Faafoi does the right thing.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is with great pride that I rise to take this call on this Government bill to ban conversion therapy—35 years since Fran Wilde’s Homosexual Law Reform Bill passed in 1986; 17 years since the Labour Government supported the Civil Union Bill into law in 2004; eight years since my colleague Louisa Wall’s marriage equality amendment bill passed in 2013; and today this bill, which began its life as a member’s bill, Marja Lubeck’s bill, is here as a Government bill because this Labour Government is committed to creating a more inclusive and accepting New Zealand and being the best place in the world to be a child.

Conversion therapy is harmful to mental health. We know that the rainbow community experiences worse mental health. University of Auckland research shows that same- or multiple-sex attracted people have higher rates of depressive symptoms, self-harm, and suicide attempts. The Counting Ourselves survey documents worse mental health for trans people living in Aotearoa. Behind those statistics, I think of the many friends that I know who have had those experiences: the friend who buried his boyfriend when he was in his 30s; the girlfriends who bounced in and out of mental health wards.

People subjected to conversion therapy have worse mental health outcomes. A paper in the American Journal of Public Health suggests twice the odds of experiencing suicidal ideation; a 75 percent higher risk of planning a suicide attempt. Not long ago, on 8 July, we came together in this House to debate Zero Suicide Aotearoa. Members on both sides of the House were united in their concern about suicide. Just a month ago, we heard from the Opposition about how concerned they were about these issues, and here, with an opportunity to do something about it, they are voting against a very practical measure that would make a difference to many New Zealanders.

I listened to Mr Bridges’ comments. He didn’t really talk about conversion therapy at all. I will talk about conversion therapy. I don’t want to talk about the mental health consequences of conversion therapy anymore, because it seems to me to miss the point. The problem with conversion therapy is just how awful the practice itself is. All people, but particularly young people, want to belong. Young people are forming their identity. Naturally, they want to be accepted. Conversion therapy is about trying to erase someone’s identity. It is about saying that part of you is defective and we want to root it out. Conversion therapy is coercive, because behind conversion therapy is a threat of exclusion: this part of you is wrong and you don’t belong. If we did this to a prisoner, we would call it abuse or torture. It is the threat of being banished, of being cast out of society.

Lots of people complain about being cancelled over trivial matters and disagreements, but conversion therapy is actually cancelling someone. Imagine being the young person in that position; it must be traumatic, and it is totally unjustifiable. Does anyone in this House think conversion therapy is a good idea? A lot of members opposite can’t look up right now. Does anyone think it’s a good idea? If it’s not a good idea, the Opposition has the opportunity to support this bill to select committee to address their technical objections, but they chose not to take that, to fearmonger about items that are not at all in the bill.

Conversion therapy is a sick and bizarre practice, and what is unbelievable is that these practices are called “therapy”. What a misappropriation of the word “therapy”. It causes hurt, not healing. To believe conversion therapy is therapy you have to believe that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is a disease; that it is something wrong in need of fixing. And the charlatans that engage in this practice use the language of medicine to bolster their false authority. That’s why it’s so important that medical, psychiatric, and psychological authorities around the world have condemned the process. I wonder what Dr Reti thinks. I wonder what mental health advocate Matt Doocey thinks.

The rainbow community has long fought homophobia. We have done this by asserting our rights, by being visible. The primary way we do this is with pride, by being proud and refusing to be ashamed. The rainbow community has progressed progressive law reform in New Zealand to ensure that our rights are upheld, and the rainbow community has called for this bill to be passed today. I am very proud to be a member of New Zealand’s rainbow community, and I am proud to be a Labour MP supporting this bill. All our young people should grow up with a sense of pride in themselves. Conversion therapy is monstrous. It is not therapy; it is hate. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s probably about 95 percent of what the former speaker said that I completely agree with, and I think one of the challenges when we are in Parliament is we are actually debating what is in the bill as opposed to what the intent of the original bill was. I think that’s a big part of the frustration for the National Partly because, absolutely, we condemn conversion therapy. We condemn abusive practices that prevent someone from being who they are and from loving who they choose to love. I want to make it very clear that the National Party wants to support the bill, but the issue that was raised and that the Minister has not been able to answer is the question of the prosecution of parents. That was asked of the Minister and he hasn’t been able to answer that simple question so the reality for the National Party is we absolutely support the intent of it but to be responsible parliamentarians we must look at: what does the bill actually say and do?

We implore the Government to fix the problem. We implore the Government to fix the problem and not create new ones. Our primary concern is the exposure of parents to prosecution, and I would have thought members opposite would also be concerned about that—about that concern—and that’s why we have very clearly and simply asked for an exemption for parents. I’m really hopeful that during the select committee process the members opposite—and I take the Minister’s point; he extended the branch to listen to what Opposition parties were contributing to take them on board, to consider them, because I can speak very confidently in that the National Party wants to have a bill that we can support. We want to have a bill that can be unanimously passed through this Parliament—but the sticking point is about parents.

So let’s just explore this a bit further, because in listening to family members, listening to young people, listening to those who have been through the very sorts of things that the previous speaker expressed, I think it’s really important that we consider that. Consider the sensitive years before the age of 18 when it’s challenging for any young New Zealander anyway and add to that sexual orientation or gender identity—and I want people to consider young people doing that in complete isolation of their family. I think it would be a derogation of responsibility for us to in any way, shape, or form create a path where young people would do that on their own or parents would feel concerned about what they might say or what they might do, and where that might lead to a criminal prosecution. So we’ve asked the question. The Minister hasn’t been able to clearly state that parents—

💬 Louisa Wall: Read the bill. It’s in the bill.

Well, yeah, I’m asking. This is a Government bill. This is the Minister—the question’s been asked and that’s not how we see it. So there is no exemption.

Chlöe Swarbrick: You’re playing politics.

No, this is not about politics. This is absolutely not. Do not put words in my mouth.

Experts say that research shows that how parents respond can be fundamental to their children’s mental health and wellbeing now and in the future. We want parents to lean in at this time in a young person’s life and not lean out. I implore the Government to consider a parental exemption so that no parent and no young person is in a situation where they’re concerned about this type of engagement. We want to have open conversations with our teenagers. We want to walk alongside them. We want to offer advice. In many instances, they won’t take that advice and that’s fine. But we are talking here about medical procedures. Are you seriously saying as a parent, when a young person under the age of 18 is considering a medical procedure, that you as a parent, you as a parent, shouldn’t engage, support, provide advice, get external advice? Obviously not. So the Labour Government members are basically saying the State should have more say over your family than parents. That’s exactly it. That is the crux of it. So make the parental exemption, make the parental exemption, because this is—

💬 Louisa Wall: They’re already exempted.

Well, the Minister hasn’t said that explicitly. That’s not the expectation of what’s in the bill, and that’s what we want to see explicitly—a parental exemption. So young people should be able to seek advice. Young people should be able to seek advice of their families as well as others, and we don’t want them excluded or criminalised, which is completely what is in the bill as written. It’s a complete deviation from what was originally considered—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! I invite the member to come back to the bill.

I’m on the bill. So as the Minister said—[Interruption]

💬 Maureen Pugh: Show some respect.

Yeah, they clearly don’t care. They clearly don’t care about parents because that’s at the crux of this issue. We’re talking about young people 18 and under and medical procedures that this bill does not protect. So that is our concern. We’re happy to draw a line in the sand on that issue and that issue alone. And I will say again—I’ll say again so there is no shadow of doubt—National wants to support this bill. We abhor conversion therapy and anything that harms or abuses, or creates issues for, any New Zealander to choose who they are, to be who they are, and to love who they choose.

So that’s our contribution. I’d like to think the other side’s listening. They’re clearly not. I’d like to see when the bill progresses that there is clarity and a parental exemption because no young person and no parent should have this hanging over them.

I seek leave of the House, Madam Speaker, to table a document. I seek leave of the House to table the document, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, because it appears that the Opposition has not read it.

I seek leave of the House that that document be tabled.

💬 Simeon Brown: Point of order. That’s not a point of order—that’s not a point of order.

Are you seeking a point of order, Simeon Brown?

💬 Simeon Brown: Well, point of order, Madam Speaker. That’s a publicly available document.

Next—

Point of order, Madam Speaker. I’m finding it extremely difficult to hear, and I would be appreciative if the noise—as Mr Speaker had been talking about during question time—be kept at a level where we can all hear the contributions, please, that are being made.

I absolutely agree. I would like this House to be in order. I would like the members of this House to be respectful of each other. I realise that we don’t always agree, especially on this bill, but can we please be respectful of each other.

On this day in 1944, Anne Frank and her family were arrested after more than two years in their secret hiding place in Amsterdam. Now, one might think, what does that have to do with this Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill? Well, the link is clear: the issues that got Anne Frank and her family arrested and, ultimately, killed are still relevant today. We need to ensure we protect one another and, particularly, our rangatahi against dangers of prejudice, discrimination, and intimidation. The Hon Grant Robertson said this at the unveiling of the Anne Frank memorial in June this year: “Every single day, we see elements of discrimination and hatred around us. We see the elements of exclusion, of putting people outside, and making them the other. So every single day it is our job to call that out, to say this is not acceptable; to strive to build the world that Anne Frank talked about, a world of hope, of courage, of beauty.”

Now, Aotearoa New Zealand is a country that values and accepts our rainbow community without the need to be subjected to any kind of conversion therapies, because, firstly, there’s nothing wrong with anyone having a diverse sexual orientation or gender identity, but also the premise that somehow this can be changed is, of course, absolutely untrue. There’s no scientific nor medical evidence to support the use of conversion therapies, and we heard my colleague Minister Verrall talk very eloquently on that. The practice is widely condemned as being against the code of ethics that’s done by the medical profession and many psychological associations across the world, as well as in our own country.

So-called conversion therapy is not only just something that doesn’t work; it’s actually shown to be incredibly harmful, and some of the speeches have pointed that out. Trying to convert someone by making them believe that, due to their sexuality or gender identity, there is something wrong with them that requires changing can cause severe adverse mental health effects. Claiming to be able to cure homosexuality, as if it is a mental illness or some kind of behavioural problem, and giving people false hope at a time when they are struggling about who they are is harmful and can be fatal for members of the rainbow community who are already vulnerable—and five times more at-risk of mental health issues and harm.

What we need to really do is validate their identity and tell them that who they are is the right thing; everybody is free to be themselves. It brings me back to something that Kyle MacDonald said in one of the interviews I held about this topic. He talked about validation and how important that is. He said that one of the cornerstones of any psychotherapy is the idea that it’s only through acceptance of ourselves, the bits we like, and—even more challenging—the bits we don’t like, comes true health.

Now, we like to celebrate our country’s diversity, but we still have to work to strengthen New Zealand society. When we talk about people who have suffered, what we fail to acknowledge is that we live in a society that is infused with homophobia. So the need for love and acceptance will push anyone to try and conform to the norm. The Hon Louise Upston, the previous speaker, showed that she didn’t read the bill because nothing in this bill shows that talking to your children falls under a definition of conversion practices, and if you want to have it improved, support it to select committee. But not doing so will not give us an opportunity to, for example, hear the survivors’ stories, and they will tell us the crucial things that we need to hear.

There are many harrowing stories from survivors of conversion therapy, and this also includes, for example, the story of the young woman who told the story of the time her mum had suggested a deliverance: a practice where a minister would pray over her to free her from the demonic forces. She said that “Looking back, it was clear that I was desperate to have connection and love from my parents, and I would do anything to get it.”, but when the demons didn’t budge and she walked out feeling ashamed for who she was—how can that be healthy? How can we allow any kind of messaging that tells people, that tells our rangatahi, there’s something wrong with them and they need to be fixed?

One of the questions I hear most frequently is, “Well, is it actually really happening in New Zealand?” I first heard about conversion therapy when I watched a TVNZ Sunday documentary in 2018. The phrase in that programme was that it was surprisingly easy to find places that would offer it. I was shocked to think that in this day and age and in this country, Aotearoa New Zealand, diversity, inclusion—it would still be happening. But it was, and from many messages I’ve received, it’s clear that others felt that way as well.

From Barbara, “I’m a mental health registered nurse and I was shocked to hear it’s still legal in New Zealand. I’ve seen the damage caused to people who are told what they feel is not natural and have tried to change their sexuality. It can cause irreparable harm.” From Deborah, “Because of its unspoken prevalence in New Zealand, I have friends who struggle to find where they can find physical and/or mental health care without being subjected to attempts to change who they are. Banning the practice would make it far easier for them to access safe healthcare.”

Now, it was a great privilege when I was asked to accept a petition to ban conversion therapy. Young Labour and Young Greens, together with Rodney Rainbow, collected more than 20,000 signatures between them, and so I became part of the whakapapa of this current bill. Here—as the Minister rightly foreshadowed—I would like to acknowledge Amanda Ashley, a transgender activist from Rodney Rainbow. When we first met, her petition had 1,500 signatures. She would send me messages over the following weeks, excited that the petition got up to 2,000 signatures, and then 3,000, and then when the petition closed three years ago—to this date almost—7 August 2018, it had a total of 5,157 signatures on it. She was so proud. All together, those signatures on the petitions totalled more than 20,000. Long story short, as a result, my member’s bill went into the ballot because I had the support of my party for a bill that would outlaw conversion therapy.

Thank you to then justice Minister, the Hon Andrew Little, for the continued support on the issue. Labour then made it part of the 2020 manifesto, and what we’re doing now delivers on that particular commitment. Thank you to the Hon Kris Faafoi for shepherding this bill through the House. It’s an avenue to uphold the human rights of all New Zealanders to live free from discrimination and harm.

So this all started with a petition, and Amanda Ashley will be remembered as an important part of this whakapapa. But, sadly, Amanda took her own life in 2018. She will be remembered as a beautiful, sensitive, sweetheart of a lady, and a strong activist.

I’ve been blessed to have the privilege to be part of this kaupapa and to have received such a warm welcome from the rainbow community. And while I’ve got your attention, I might as well clear this up: Paul, I’m sorry for the initial confusion. It has now been cleared up that I’m, in fact, not a lesbian, but despite the fact that you know that now, thank you for not treating me any different and still accepting me for who I am. At no stage have I ever felt any discrimination for identifying as heterosexual.

I’ve met many committed advocates for rainbow issues, and I want to do the following shout-outs for the support they have given me. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but they are people and organisations that have given me support that I’ve been in contact with and I’ve learnt from. So here we go: Mitch Keast, for his relentless research and optimism; my formidable Labour rainbow caucus colleagues; members of Rainbow Labour and Paul Stevens, the chair; members of the Conversion Therapy Action Group: Neihana, Max, Shaneel, Shannon Novak, Kyle MacDonald, Jim Marjoram; Terri and Ted; Princes Street Labour; Rainbow Youth; Young Labour; Young Greens; Young Nats; OutLine; Aych McArdle; St Matthew-in-the-City; St Peter’s on Willis; InsideOUT; and Tabby. There are many more other champions for the rainbow community—too many to mention—but one shout-out goes to Diane Sparkes in Ōrewa, advocating for the rights of the rainbow community.

I want to finish with a message from a survivor, because survivor stories are crucial to actually try and get a glimpse of what harm, intolerance, exclusion, discrimination, and prejudice can do to a person: “I always knew my sexuality was a problem, but when you see your entire community chanting hate, that’s terrifying. Spiritual abuse causes trauma, and trauma doesn’t always go away when people say sorry. Many people don’t make it through conversion therapy”—it’s not an unusual story.

Conversion practices simply have no place in our country, but we currently have no legislation that makes it an offence. Let’s show the compassion and inclusiveness that are in line with New Zealand’s values. This bill sends a clear message: we won’t stand by and allow this behaviour to continue. It says: we love you, we accept you for who you are, and we will do everything in our power to protect you. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia orana koutou katoatoa i te ‘Epetoma o te reo Māori Kūki ‘Āirani. It is with great pleasure I stand to speak on behalf of the Green Party on this kaupapa. E tuku muhi ki te Minita, Kris Faafoi, mō tēnei mahi hōhonu. Also, we acknowledge the staff here, the staff of the ministry, and the Human Rights Commission who have all worked so hard to make this happen, and, of course, all of our community leaders who largely volunteer, yet again are available for consultation and advice. I also want to acknowledge the Young Greens, Young Labour, and Young Nats, who I also had the opportunity to meet with through this process.

In February, we launched our Māori priorities at Waitangi, and we identified takatāpui rights as a Treaty issue. We did this because we understand a colonial history that brought missionaries to our country who immediately told us our enjoyment of sex was wrong, that any kind of sexual fluidity was wrong, any fluidity in gender identity was wrong. Along with trying to take away all of our language, all of our land, all of our resources, they also tried to steal that story and whakapapa from us. The fact that we are here today, and every time that I get to use the word takatāpui in this House, says that all of us since then continue to honour all of them.

A week after Waitangi, we launched a petition at Big Gay Out. We had a huge, massive response from this country: nearly 160,000 people signed that petition within a week. Many people did not know that this still existed in our country, and it was people across the political spectrum. I got letters from people saying, “We signed your petition, but we want you to know we do not like the Greens otherwise.”, and I would just reply back going, “Kia ora.”

💬 Rawiri Waititi: They must be Māori Party supporters.

Ha, ha! Probably. I want to point out that that petition was the largest verified petition ever held in this country, because on the record, the two unverified petitions are the two that were presented for the homosexual law reform. I’m very, very proud that our country and this Parliament is a place where we can present the real views of actual, real people.

The hard thing about when this topic comes up, of course, is all of the letters we received from survivors from here and from around the world who were so pleased we were doing this work in our Parliament. Others have acknowledged there are those who are still surviving and living amongst our communities and dealing with the harm and the emotional impact that has had on their whole life, but, of course, we have lost so many—so many—even within the last few years, who have felt that they could not go on in the environment of this country.

I want to reiterate: in terms of whakapapa, if we’re looking right back to colonisation, this is hundreds of years of discrimination against our community, and conversion therapy is only one topic of the special ways that people have tried to harm rainbow communities. It was those original missionaries, those original churches, that set up, really started, conversion therapy, and over the years, over the decades, it’s been refined to an art. However, years after homosexual law reform, which was led by most of the mainstream—the protest was led by most of the mainstream—churches of this country, many of those churches would now look back in horror at what was done. Some of them have apologised for their part in it and would have no truck with it. We have only to look at what are the particular types of churches who are still offering this service, as they like to see and think of it, to see how much further we still have to go in this country.

For me, an important part of this whole kaupapa is wairua, it’s our spirituality. It is my belief that our drive to be who we are, our sexuality, our gender, is part of our wairua, our spirituality, that comes to us from our ancestors, from our gods, the way that we experience them. For takatāpui, we know that our sexuality and our cultural connection is as important to us as our sexuality, as our gender identity, as our sex characteristics. The real issue around conversion therapies is (a) it’s not good to tell someone that who they are is wrong, ever, in any context. What it does, though, is it takes something else that is a part of someone, their commitment to their religion, their spirituality, the way they experience that, and uses that against another part of themselves. That is the thing that our mental health system currently is nowhere close to being set up to help resolve. A shout-out to groups like OutLine, like all of the leading groups within our rainbow communities: Intersex Awareness New Zealand, Gender Minorities Aotearoa, InsideOUT, RainbowYOUTH, of course. It’s left to the community to try and untangle those things, those hurts, and try and give healing.

Others have talked about the many lives we have lost. We don’t have exact data on conversion therapies. We know that in the Counting Ourselves research, they had some figures that were particularly for trans and non-binary people, but we don’t have a true picture, and I think that somewhere along the line, some funding needs to be allocated to actually doing that proper research.

But the main thing I want to finish on is about whānau, because the one thing I do agree with our National colleagues on here is that whānau should be able to make good decisions on behalf of their children. So to hold up this: this is a resource that we did with RainbowYOUTH, “Growing Up Takatāpui: Whānau Journeys.” We interviewed young takatāpui, their parents, and their grandparents. We wanted to understand what was going on inside whānau. Young people, they talked about their fears, about talking about who they were in talking to their whānau. They said they experienced embarrassment, fear, isolation, guilt, depression, anger, and hopelessness. The whānau themselves weren’t dealing well with their child coming out or wanting to transition. They talked about, also, shock and embarrassment, denial, a justified fear for their child’s safety. They had grief: the future they had seen for their child had disappeared.

Now, in an inclusive society, that whānau would be looked after. There would be wrapped around with support. They would have people—those young people could go and talk to other young people and say what is going on for them. Those whānau could have people with good quality information that would say this is what’s happening together. That whānau could move forward and make decisions about whatever types of groups they might want to join, ways that they could work inside their churches and places of worship. They might make some sorts of arrangements around surgical healthcare, and they would do that as a whānau. They would make those decisions together with clarity, based on knowing that what was most important was being able to uphold the mana of who someone was and that as the parents, the whānau, of this child, this young person—this adult, even—they would help make that together. That is not the world we live in.

So do we want to criminalise whānau? Of course not. Do we want to put an entire congregation who all colluded in conversion therapy of members of their congregation? Of course not. Do we want to see things put in place, though, where people are held accountable for their actions? Absolutely—absolutely. People who have had this happen to them deserve some justice, should we get more to a point where those congregations decide to learn from their mistakes, that they apologise for the harm they have caused and they beg forgiveness from their god and their communities for what they have done. We can pass this through, and we will. It’s happening, people. Let us make sure it includes all people this happens to. I want to do a final shout-out for people with disabilities—it’s not just rainbow communities. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, I firstly seek leave of the House to congratulate Lisa Carrington on winning a further gold medal, making her New Zealand’s most successful Olympian.

I stand to speak on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, and I commend the intent of the Minister to stop a practice that has been so detrimental to many lives. We cannot deny some of the horror stories that we’ve heard about conversion therapy treatments, occurring both here and around the world—events that have left detrimental effects on those receiving it. Some have described it as a pseudoscientific technique attempting to change or suppress someone through shaming, emotional manipulation, or through physical trauma. We have heard in this House, in the media, and through accounts of those with lived experience how their psychological, social, emotional, and often spiritual needs have been destroyed by conversion therapy.

The LGBTQI communities speak of the harm some of the practices cause, and the suicidal thoughts that often follow, along with the ongoing mental health issues that can result from conversion therapy. I note also that the Salvation Army state that they do not support conversion therapy, and have released a guideline for Salvationists on the topic. They have recommended a list of practical responses, one of which says, and I quote, “In response to the question, ‘Then what do I do if someone wrestling with their sexual identity wants prayer?’, Salvationists are encouraged to help people explore their identity—for instance, by praying that God will affirm their authentic identity and speak into their search for who they were made to be, or by pastorally exploring what it is that has led them to conclude that they may need to change. Salvationists will not pray for a specific outcome with regard to someone’s sexuality.”

So, on the face of it, and with what we believe to be an understanding of the intent of the bill, we want to support this, and we will do so through the first reading. You see, one of the ACT Party’s first principles is that all people should be owners of their own lives, that people must be free to act according to their own judgments, so long as they accept and respect the like freedom of others.

We want adults to feel comfortable in their own skin, be respected for the choices that they make about themselves, and not experience harm because others don’t agree with those choices. However, we do have some major concerns about some of the clauses in this bill, and unless we can get some clarity around raised issues at the select committee, we simply could not continue to support it.

We have concerns around the effect the bill may have on families, and the discussions that would often occur in the home when a young family member initiates or raises the topic of their sexuality, identity, or gender choice. Could a parent’s initial reaction, when not physically harmful, actually cause the parent to be prosecuted if they’re not supportive of the child? The Minister has said it’s not cool with parents being prosecuted for preventing their child from taking hormone blockers, but without clarity in the bill, this scenario can most certainly happen. Without clarity, we are left with the regulatory impact statement comment, which actually states, “It would be a criminal offence for parents, or other members of a family, to attempt to change or suppress the sexual orientation, gender identity or expression of children within the family.”

Further to this, if the family wanted to seek religious guidance, and they were, say, Salvationists, they won’t get that advice; they would not even get prayer. And why is this? Well, the regulatory impact statement says, “Conversion practices that take the form of prayer and counselling that are directed towards an individual would be captured by the preferred option.” And, of course, we are now dealing with this—the preferred option. We recognise the accusations that some religious conversion therapies are a big part of the problem, but we need to find the line between criminal actions and the ability to converse. And the job of the select committee will be to determine if those lines have been drawn in the right place. And, at the moment, we don’t believe that they have.

ACT’s concern is that the bill in its current format doesn’t just step on parents and religion; it actually stomps on it. The Government would be interfering and legislating what can be said in the home, how a family is to deal with an issue, and removes their ability to seek religious guidance. We note that the purpose of this bill is stated in clause 3(b), which is to “promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender.” And ACT agrees with this purpose but believes that the interpretation of conversion practice in clause 5 does not achieve that purpose, and, if implemented, will, in fact, achieve the opposite. Further to this, in clause 5(2)(f) there is a statement that expression only of a religious principle or belief that is not intended to change or suppress the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression would be excluded from prosecution.

So you can speak to the principle of a religious belief, but not if it is intended to change the mind of the individual. Yet we would argue that most religious principles and beliefs would actually speak against a change in sexual identity, and therefore makes understanding what can be spoken about, and what cannot, ambiguous. It’s rather Orwellian. We believe that this bill, in its current format, only allows freedom of expression to run one way, and that those that have differing views will be in fear of prosecution for expressing them. Another of ACT’s founding principles is based on freedom of expression. In a free society, this must be promoted, protected, and preserved, without restriction, other than for incitement, criminal nuisance, or defamation. Those that seek conversion advice, that question their identity, should be able to do so freely, and those whose advice has been sought should be able to give their advice just as freely, without fear of prosecution. It simply must run both ways.

This then leads me to our concerns about consent. The Human Rights Act provision appears to be inconsistent with the Crimes Act prohibition, which appears to focus on causing real harm to someone, and lack of consent. The Human Rights Act provision requires neither of these elements to be present. Therefore, there is a question as to whether someone is freely consenting, and should they be able to engage in such a practice.

ACT most certainly believes that there are some conversion therapy practices that must absolutely be stopped, and we wholeheartedly support this Government in this. However, with such a wide scope around the interpretation of conversion practice, interfering with families and religion, with confusion around civil liberties versus criminal conduct, and freedom of expression only allowed one way, one might think that the thought police are only but one legislative instrument away.

The ACT Party supports this bill through its first reading, and we hope that through the select committee process, the concerns we have raised can be satisfactorily addressed. Therefore, we support this bill to select committee.

Members, this is a split call. I call Tāmati Coffey—five minutes.

E te Pīka tēnā koe. Mō ngā mineti e rua e toru pea ka kōrero ahau i roto i te reo Māori. Tēnā koutou te hunga e whakarongo mai ana, e mātakitaki ana, tēnā tātou katoa.

He mihi anō ki te Minita o te Karauna, te Minita Manatū Ture, a Kris Faafoi, taku whananga, nō te moutere ātaahua o Tokelau. E hoa, nāu i mauria mai tēnei pire ki tēnei Whare, nō reira ka nui te mihi.

He rā whakahirahira tēnei mō te puāwaitanga o ngā tamariki mokopuna o Aotearoa kāore anō kia whānau mai. He taonga te tamaiti. He taonga te tangata. He taonga tōna mana, he taonga tōna tuakiri, mai rā anō.

He uri tēnei o tētahi o ngā uri o Te Arawa waka, ko Tūtānekai tōna ingoa. He tangata rongonui rawa atu. Ko ia te whaiāipo a Hinemoa, te wahine tapairu o Ngāti Te Roro o te Rangi. Engari i mua i tana hononga ki a Hinemoa, kei a Tūtānekai he hoa pūmau anō. He hoa takatāpui tāna ko Tiki tōna ingoa. E ai ki te mātauranga o Te Rangikāheke, ka aroha atu a Tūtānekai ki a Tiki, ka mea atu ki a Whakaue, ke mate ahau i te aroha ki tōku hoa ki a Tiki.

[Greetings to the Speaker. For the next two or three minutes, I will speak in Māori. Greetings to all who are listening and watching.

I also wish to acknowledge the Minister of the Crown, the Minister of Justice, Kris Faafoi, from the beautiful island of Tokelau. Oh friend, it was you who proposed this bill to this House; therefore, I greet you.

This is an auspicious day for the future of the children of Aotearoa who have yet to be born. Children are treasures. People are treasures. Their mana and their identity are treasures, from time immemorial.

I am a descendant of an ancestor from Te Arawa canoe, named Tūtānekai. He was quite famous. He was the lover of Hinemoa, chieftainess of Ngāti Te Roro o te Rangi. However, before he married Hinemoa, Tūtānekai had another close friend, a gay friend called Tiki. According to the knowledge of Te Rangikāheke, Tūtānekai felt deeply for his friend Tiki and said to Whakaue, “I am overcome with love for my friend Tiki.”]

You see, Tūtānekai loved Tiki, and he said to Whakaue, “I am stricken with love for my friend, for Tiki.” The missionary William Williams in 1884 translated the word “takatāpui” as an “intimate companion of the same sex”. Naturally, there are some back home that dispute that translation and also the nature of that relationship too. For some it’s a little bit uncomfortable that a chief from our whakapapa may have enjoyed a homosexual relationship just prior to his marriage. I say that if it’s OK for the Greeks, it’s OK for us. That said, the word “takatāpui” has become a commonly used term and it’s experiencing a renaissance within the Māori rainbow community, and I say rightfully so.

My point is that Māori have our own stories about sexuality that pre-date the arrival of Europeans and the arrival of the Bible and also those who interpret it, which has done considerable damage to the rainbow community, causing considerable harm. Colonisation reached into our cultural norms about what constituted both positive and negative relationships, and as we become more aware, we must also challenge those colonial heterosexual assumptions that have been normalised around us, and central to that is the assumption that if you aren’t heterosexual, then there must be ways to fix you.

The Government’s intention in this bill—which I support wholeheartedly—in prohibiting conversion practices are, one, to affirm the dignity of all people and say that no sexual orientation or gender identity is broken and in need of fixing; two, to prevent the harm conversion practices cause in New Zealand and to provide an avenue for redress; and, three, to uphold the human rights of all New Zealanders, including rainbow New Zealanders, to live free from discrimination and from harm. This bill will provide penalties to those who continue to use conversion practices and provide survivors with avenues for redress.

But I do have a concern. The criminalisation of conversion practices may just result in a change in how they’re presented or how they’re framed or how they’re performed. The way that practices are described may become more subtle—for example, through references to “exploring sexuality” rather than changing it, and on spiritual healing and development. Conversion practices have very low public visibility now, so the prohibition will have little effect in that regard, but it is important to remember that however conversion practices are presented, survivors will now have recourse to the laws to lay complaints, both criminal and civil.

In my 20s, I wasn’t able to get married, but the Civil Union Bill came in and made things a little more normal. In my 30s, I was able to, finally, get married and, again, the law changed—thank you to my colleague on my left, Louisa Wall. In my 40s, I hope to oversee the banning of conversion therapy and I hope for considerably better conditions for rainbow couples wanting to embark on parenthood. I look forward to being part of that change.

He takatāpui e tēnei, e tautoko ana i tēnei piri. Kia ora.

[I am takatāpui, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.]

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa, whakamanatia ngā takatāpui [To the Speaker, greetings to all, acknowledge all gay people], or, as Rawiri would say, I’m proud to be takatāpui.

I have some evidence from the United States about how damaging conversion therapy, conversion practices, are. Of the young people who experienced conversion therapy and who attempted suicide in 2020, 28 percent of the young people who went through conversion therapy experienced suicide. No experience of conversion therapy: 12 percent. So it’s harmful. I want us to be really clear about what conversion therapy is. Conversion therapy was started in 1899 by a German psychiatrist. I won’t go into his name, but, essentially, the proposition at that time was that being gay was a disease and it must be cured. What they did—or what he purported to do—was turn gays straight by hypnosis and also trips to the brothel. Why? Because at that time we were seen as sinful, as deviant, as criminals. So, obviously, that religious overlay in our lives, without clear scientific evidence, was the prevailing doctrine, which is why it was called a therapy. In the 1920s they actually performed testicle transplants, to remove testicles from gay men and give them—

💬 Terisa Ngobi: That’s torture.

It is torture—absolutely. The majority of clinicians said being gay was a disease so we could experience electroconvulsive therapy, lobotomies, shock treatment, porn and brothels, and, latterly, it became aversion therapy, where homosexual men had to watch porn and the shock therapy was through their penises—because, obviously, if you were disgusted by homosexuality, then you would be cured and you would lead a normal life. In 1973, this all changed when the American Psychiatric Association deemed that conversion practices were harmful and that there was no scientific evidence that they worked.

So the reality of today is that these practices are still happening, except that they happen in camps, Christian camps. They happen through prayer vigils. They happen through talk therapy. They happen through exorcisms. And for women, they include corrective rape. That is what conversion therapy is, which is why we want to ban it. It’s abhorrent. It’s disgusting. It’s a relic of a historical positioning about LGBTIQ+ peoples somehow being wrong. We are not wrong. We are born exactly as we’re meant to be, and we deserve the protection of the State.

What conversion therapy is not—and I want to reference the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. They have a position statement on sexual orientation change efforts. They do “not support the use sexual orientation change efforts of any kind. There is no scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed. Sexual orientation change efforts risk causing significant harm to individuals.” What they’re really clear about, however, is that sexual orientation change efforts do not refer to those undergoing gender affirmation therapy or management.

And herein lies the relevance to clause 5(2)(b) of this piece of legislation, which says that conversion practice does not include assisting an individual who is undergoing or considering undergoing a gender transition. So people who are worried about parents being criminalised because they stop their children from receiving hormones that are prescribed by a clinician—get real. It’s not a real conversation, it’s misinformation, and trying to create in the public panic that parents are going to be criminalised. I think it’s an absolutely abhorrent position for anybody to take on this piece of legislation. At the heart of this is our children and them knowing that they are perfect as they are, that they are loved, and that we as a society will value them and not let any harm happen to them in their exploration and their expression of who they are. I seriously say to the National Party, you are on the wrong side of history. [Interruption]

Order! This is a split call. [Interruption] Order! Please, can I just say to the people in the gallery that this is a debate for members in the Chamber, and we have members waiting to seek their call. You know, I can understand a little bit of applause, but it’s going on too long. You might have that opportunity at the end.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak to the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. National speakers have already stated, I think, pretty clearly that we support the core, original intent of the bill—namely, that practices that are unwanted or coercive in their nature and, particularly, with an element of physicality are not practices that we support. Therefore, in terms of the bill, if the issues that we’ve raised so far—and which I just want to detail a bit further in this contribution—can be addressed, then we’ll be pleased to be in a position where we’ll be able to support the bill.

That National position relates to a couple of key points, one of which is in relation to the role of parents, or whānau more generally. Of course, it’s important to acknowledge different family arrangements that are possible and that indeed do prevail in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2021.

So in the BORA vet—the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act advice to the Attorney-General—as tabled along with the bill, does note the fact that there is a possibility of a, or rather—or I may as well quote directly: “a potential chilling effect on legitimate expressions of opinion within families/whānau about sexuality and gender,”. I think it’s probably fair if I do acknowledge that that is under the heading in the view of the officials who have provided the advice of justified limitation, and they do believe that there is a measure of consistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act for a few key reasons. I would potentially disagree with at least one of those, but in the time available to me I’ll not dwell on that aspect. But I think it’s a fair point that the chilling effect is to be considered seriously alongside what is in the bill and what might be subject to interpretation by some members of the House differently from others and by, for example, individual police constables and so on who might be asked to give a view in any individual case.

The other one is in relation to the fact that it’s not possible to consent to things that might be considered within the definition of practices. Clause 10 of the bill is very clear in that regard. It says that the offences specified in clauses 8 and 9 do not enjoy a defence, even if the individual who was receiving those practices consented to them. Obviously, the concept of consent is pretty complex under the law, and I do acknowledge that consent that is seemingly given but is subject to coercion or undue influence is not real consent in itself. So, again, we do acknowledge the complexity of this. Not only is it a theoretical matter in a matter of law but, of course, on the ground in a person’s home, for example, and in many other contexts, for that matter.

So with those points having been made, and noting as well the point also made under the heading of “Freedom of expression” under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet—again, in the document to which I’ve previously referred—the document notes the potential for the broad definition of a practice to extend further beyond what they currently consider on their interpretation to be within the realm of justified limitation. I think these are matters that can and should be examined at the select committee process, and, of course, much has been said in this House about the fact that different parties in this Parliament will have the opportunity to state their views in that process. But I think, more importantly, people throughout New Zealand who have been affected in different ways and who will have different views, inevitably, on the legislation will have their opportunity at that point. So that debate is to be welcomed, it’s not to be shied away from, and I think that all members of Parliament should feel obliged to listen carefully to those comments and evidence that the select committee will hear.

My final comment before the end of the allocated time is just in relation to the rule of law more generally. Of course, it’s an aspect of our legal arrangements—and particularly where criminal justice is concerned; particularly where we are saying that a person must act in a certain way or not act in a certain way under pain of imprisonment by the State—that it should be as clear as possible. That’s an aspect of the bargain that’s struck between the State and the citizen whereby the citizen has to comply with laws, but the State’s obliged to state clearly what they are. It seems to me that there is a considerable uncertainty in some of these aspects, and I think, with all due respect, we’re seeing that from the Minister of Justice when asked about key aspects in relation to the bill. So we look forward to gaining clarity—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I’m going to be on the right side of history in this debate, and I will not wait for a valedictory speech to apologise to the rest of New Zealand. It is probably not often that politicians get up and admit, in this House, and freely, that there is stuff they don’t know, but I’m going to do that today. I have a lot to learn from our takatāpui community as a straight man. Their experience is not my experience; it would be wrong to pretend that it is. What I do know and have always known is that takatāpui are whānau. End of story. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. I’m on a journey to deepen my understanding so I can support all of our whānau as a political representative of tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti in this place. Our people always celebrated our diversity as Te Ao Māori. We each come with our own whakapapa, our own upbringings, and our own identities, but at the end of the day we are all whānau.

It was colonisation and the imposition of European ideas around gender and sexuality that started criminalising and oppressing people for being who they are; turning us against our own whānau. My language tells me this. Our language is non-binary. Ko ia, ko koe, ko au, ko koutou, ko mātou, ko tātou. We need to decolonise ourselves, and maybe we should put some kind of therapy law to start decolonising ourselves and reaffirm the tikanga of our tipuna.

Conversion therapy is a direct attack on our whakapapa. It fails to uphold our mana motuhake, to be who we are, and does not meet our aspirations of mana orite—equality for all people. We will always support whānau to be who they are. Conversion therapy, which tries to stop takatāpui from being who they are, has no place in Aotearoa—maybe in New Zealand, but not Aotearoa!

Te Paati Māori wholeheartedly support and welcome this much-needed, overdue bill. In our 2020 election campaign, we committed in our policy manifesto to ban conversion therapy. We are the movement that leaves no one behind. But just as I recognise that I need to learn more, so does our party. We humbly ask our takatāpui whānau and kaitautoko to support us on this journey.

I want to acknowledge the Government for bringing forward this bill, but, more importantly, the leaders, advocates, and allies of the takatāpui community who have pushed for so long to see legislation of this kind before the House. Today is your day. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou e hika mā.

[I acknowledge you all very much.]

I strongly believe that banning conversion therapy is a necessary step to addressing the larger issue of the dire state of our mental health system in Aotearoa. We know that young Māori takatāpui are one of the most at-risk groups of mental illness, self-harm, and suicide. Many of our mental health services are rooted in harmful colonial values that hurt our people, especially our takatāpui whānau. We oppose all of these backward colonial practices and ideas and laws and practices which cause our whānau to feel shame and guilt for being who they are.

We are looking forward to consideration of this bill at select committee, and I encourage our takatāpui community to make submissions and ensure your voices are heard in the process. It is important that we make sure the wording of the legislation is right and that provisions are strong enough to keep our people safe. The successful passage of this bill through the House will put us one step closer to an Aotearoa hō where all of us—tangata whenua, tanga Tiriti, and tangata moana—feel empowered and liberated to be who we truly are.

As a minister of Te Ringatū church, I leave you with these three lines: he Hōnore, he korōria ki te Atua. He maungārongo ki te whenua. He whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa. Honour and glory to God, peace on earth, and goodwill to all mankind. Kia ora tātou.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Grandmother God, Creator of all things; the lover of seekers and dreamers, of the disaffected and the disillusioned, of the worn-out, burnt-out, washed-up; lover of the rejected, the leavers and the grievers; lover of the queens and the divas, of the transgender, gays, and lesbians, of the intersex, cis, non-binary, and of our fabulous rainbow community. In our moments of marginalisation, isolation, and bigotry grant us the ability to act boldly along the road to human liberation. Our gender, sexual orientation, and faith beliefs do not define us. May our roads be one of freedom. Christ is freedom. May we know wholeness, know our bodies, and know you. Ake, ake, ake, Āmine.

I rise this afternoon as someone who is from the church and as someone who is from the rainbow community, and there have been moments in my upbringing, in my life, where I felt rejected from both of them. But today I stand here feeling affirmed, knowing I have a faith community behind me that loves, affirms, and supports me. Kia ora.

Now, for many of us listening, for many of us here today, we’re not talking about theory. We’re not talking about legislation. We’re not talking about an issue. I am not an issue. I am not an issue; I’m fabulous. I want to thank our Labour Party and our Government on delivering on this manifesto promise. I want to thank our Minister Faafoi. I want to thank Marja Lubeck and the work you’ve done. I want to thank our transgender and intersex whānau who often feel left out of these conversations. Thank you for being patient with us cis, gay males. And I want to thank all those who have gone before us, both living and passed on.

In my lifetime, a lot has happened. My two-year-old self, back in 1977, was when, finally, the World Health Organization chose to declassify homosexuality and take it out of the international classification of diseases. I was two. In that same period here in New Zealand, my issue was seen as a mild form of schizophrenia. My nine-year-old self saw homosexual law reform pass in this House, in this place, and I was part of a church that was not affirming at that time. And I thank the member of ACT for talking about the Salvation Army, who came out last week in support of this piece of legislation, which makes me so proud. My 18-year-old self—yeah, you’re figuring out how old I am now, I’m sure—back in 1993 was when the discrimination of sexual and gender expression was banned, and then my 29-year-old self in 2004 saw in this House civil unions passed. Then my 37-year-old self, back in 2013, saw—thank you Louisa Wall—marriage equality pass in this House.

I am so disappointed today to hear that the Hon Simon Bridges and the Hon Louise Upston, who both voted against marriage equality, standing up here telling me that I’m still an issue and I’m still a problem. Where are the liberals from the National Party? Where is the support from the National Party? Where is the leader of the National Party who said, I might add, that she opposes conversion therapy? I’m a parent and I have to say to my son, and I hope other parents would also say this, “Just be who you are.” That’s unconditional love, not trying to convert your child to anything else, the Hon Judith Collins.

Then in 2017, my 41-year-old self saw the Government apologise to men who have been convicted from past acts of homosexual offending. And then in February 2021, this year, my 45-year-old self got married in this place. This place is a place and has been a place of oppression. I said this in my maiden speech. But this place also is a place of liberation and I feel liberated to be part of this Parliament, of this Government, who makes transformational change for the sake of freedom and faith.

Now, for me, I’m fortunate. I didn’t get too pressured into having conversion therapy when I was growing up in the church. I remember being scared and afraid. I remember going to a few healing services. I remember having hands laid on me, someone trying to force me to the ground as I was released from my evilness. But I wasn’t, because there was nothing to release from me. And the psalmist says that I was fearfully and wonderfully made—I was fearfully and wonderfully made.

Now, today we are talking about this piece of legislation that is around protection. It’s to make sure that people are kept safe and the unhealthy practices don’t occur in our nation anymore. This bill is about freedom, something that I know well. Growing up in the church, I learnt that the truth will set me free. And I thank my God and my faith that I’ve been set free and am able to be the man that I am today with the husband that I have.

Now, conversion practices do emotional harm, they do physical harm, they do social harm, and, as the member of the Green Party and also Te Paati Māori said, they do spiritual harm. As a Christian, it grieves me to see the harm and the hurt that my faith has caused for centuries and centuries. And I experienced that. I felt like I was broken. I felt like I needed to be fixed. I heard words like “abomination”—I am an abomination, a thing that causes disgust and loathing. I am not an abomination. My God does not believe that I am an abomination. He loves me just the way I am. And I’m grateful that I found my faith, my true faith—that is loved and knows that he’s beautifully and wonderfully made. I also want to say thank you to the Salvation Army for coming out strongly in support of this piece of legislation.

Like I said earlier, as a nine year old, my church led a petition to stop the passing of homosexual law reform, a church that aligned themselves with MPs from this House who told my whānau, who told us to “go back to the gutters, to go back to the sewers where you belong.” And I’m grateful today that I am connected to a church that came out last week and said this: “Christians are called to be like God and therefore to be living examples of his love in action in this world. Conversion practices, which have been shown to be both ineffective and deeply harmful, are the antithesis of this.” And then it goes on to say, “We are told [in the Scriptures] to ‘Accept one another … just as Christ accepted [us] … and to be ‘sympathetic, love one another, [to] be compassionate, [to be] humble’ ”. That is what my God says and I am proud to follow them.

In closing, I’m going to do a repeat of what was just said at the end of the last speech. I come from Taranaki and Parihaka is a place that’s special to me, and this makes complete sense because it talks about glory to God above. It talks about peace on Earth, which is not just amongst the land, it’s amongst the people. It’s amongst your own self. And it talks about goodwill to all people—goodwill to all people—caring for our whānau, caring for those you don’t understand, caring for those who are different to us. So, in closing, I will also close with those words: “He Hōnore, he kōroria ki te Atua. He maungārongo ki te whenua. He whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa. Āmine.”

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There has been a lot of tension in the House this afternoon in people speaking to the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. That is understandable because there is no place for violent and abusive conversion therapy practices in New Zealand, and I want to say from the outset of my speech that no one in the National Party believes that there is a place for violent and abusive conversion therapy practices in New Zealand. We support the core intent of this bill.

Now, just in terms of legislation—and I know there’s a lot of participation from the public in here today—we came to Parliament, all of us, to make better legislation. Legislation goes through three readings and a submissions process, and it goes through the committee of the whole House, and the whole intention of that is to make better legislation. Rawiri Waititi said just a few minutes ago that we want to ensure the wording is right. That is why we are standing here today saying that we do not support conversion therapy but we’re not in a place yet where we can support this piece of legislation. We want to. We want you to help us. I know there have been lots of people on the opposite side of the House today who have genuinely been shaking their head and saying it’s not going to affect parents. We’ve got some advice here which says interactions within a family would also be captured if they meet the definition of conversion practices. It would be a criminal offence for parents or other members of a family to attempt to change or suppress the sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression of children within the family. This would align with other existing regulatory controls of parental behaviour that could harm children.

Now, there is a lot of wording in this bill that is quite vague. The language is very vague, and so it’s hard to understand exactly what is considered conversion practices under the law. In this bill, our primary concern is that this bill exposes parents to prosecution. So if there are people over on the other side of the House who truly believe that there is absolutely zero risk of that, good luck to you, but we want to be sure, we want to sit down, and we want to have the conversation. We want to hear the submissions on this, because one piece of precedent under law—if there was one piece of law that set a precedent around this stuff, then we’ve got a problem on our hands. Is it too much to ask that we sit down at select committee and we have an adult discussion around this conversation? The history of conversion therapy practices is abhorrent. We want it gone; we just want to make sure that in the process of finding ourselves in a place where we could move to support this bill—and I’m telling you today, and other members of our caucus have told you, we want to support this bill. We just want to make sure that we have the best piece of legislation that is possible to be able to support this bill.

The thing is, in this bill, there is a real conflation around the language that is very vague, talking about sexual orientation and gender identity expression, and it’s confused things. So sexual orientation requires no medical intervention, whereas when it comes to gender identity expression, parents are naturally concerned about being able to make decisions about their children being given puberty blockers and hormones. We want to make sure that the public of New Zealand has the ability to understand the conversations that can and can’t be had around these things, and we want to be able to separate that from what is historically known or has been bad practice of the past.

I saw Dr Elizabeth Kerekere up before with a book, which I haven’t seen before, and I would really love to have a copy of that book, as I’m sure many members of our party would, because it sounded to me like there was a lot of good wording in that book and good methods to be able to understand how whānau and family can deal with situations like this. And I’m hoping that, going forward, family and whānau will be a lot more accepting of this than what they have been in the past, because certainly I don’t want people ending up feeling like Glen Bennett—and look, we’re both from Taranaki. I don’t want people to feel in the future like they’re an issue, as Glen Bennett did. Everyone’s got the right to be who they want to be; there is no argument around that. We support LGBTI people. We condemn those who are intolerant. We do not want to be intolerant. But what we want is we want to make sure that we have got a watertight piece of legislation. This is not—for the Government, I’m sure you all know this is a first reading. This is not a third reading—[Interruption]

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. Sorry, I’m going to warn the members on the Government side that that’s a barrage of interjections, which is out of order—OK. That’s just way too much.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So all we’re asking for is the Government members to engage at select committee with public submissions to ensure that you allay our fears around the whānau. I can see Dr Elizabeth Kerekere nodding. I really do want to have a look at that, and I know other members in our party will do. We want to be absolutely sure when we support this piece of legislation that all our concerns and fears around parents and families have been allayed—that is all we are asking for. The reason, I believe, that part of the barrage over on the other side of the House today has been happening is because we’ve heard all sorts of things about how we’re not supportive of this. We are absolutely supportive of this—

💬 Louisa Wall: Well, then you have to vote for it.

No, we are not voting for it today. We are being cautious and we are preserving our rights as members of Parliament to completely understand that when we make a decision, we’re making the right decision.

And it may be only a matter of changing a clause in the bill that will satisfy us that we are not going to create any further harm by having families caught up in something that we’re not sure that they won’t be caught up in. So we’re just asking the Government—and look, we’ve got that opportunity for select committee. You might not be willing to give us a bit of leeway today, but we do know that we’ve got the select committee process coming up, and we will be looking for you to reassure us around that clause in the bill that we believe at the moment could have the potential to implicate parents. We’re asking to just make this piece of legislation more foolproof than what it has been, and if you can do that, we’ll certainly be going back, because we all want to support this piece of legislation. And it’s not too much to ask that you convince us that this piece of legislation that we’re very concerned about—just this one little piece in the legislation.

And if you can do that, we will have no problem. We would support it, we want to support it, and we’re just giving the Government the opportunity to make one clause better. And after all these years, for a bit of certainty, to make one clause better is, in our view, not asking for a whole lot. So we look forward to the select committee process so we can help make this a better piece of legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe, ki runga, e mihi ana ki a koutou i tēnei rā, mō tō manaakitanga mō tō tautoko mō te kaupapa nei, tēnā rawa atu ki a koutou. He mihi aroha, nō reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa. Nāku te rourou nāu te rourou ka ora ai te iwi.

[To the Speaker, and everyone above, greetings to you all today, for your generosity and support for this matter, thank you all, with all my love, thank you all. With my food basket and your food basket the people will thrive.]

With my food basket and your food basket, and even your food baskets [Directs speech towards the National Party benches], our iwi will thrive.

As the chair of our Labour rainbow caucus, it’s my pleasure to take a call on this bill; a vital bill and an important bill and piece of legislation for our rainbow whānau, our LGBTIQ+ plus plus whānau, the takatāpui whānau and their communities, parents, and families. Today we see you, we hear you, and here we are together. I see this legislation as another step to building a progressive and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand and Labour has always, always stood with our rainbow communities: in 1986, homosexual law reform; 2001, inclusion in the property relations Act; 2004, civil unions; 2012, equal marriage; 2018, expunging historical homosexual convictions. In this term of Government, we established the rainbow legacy fund to support organisations working to improve mental health and wellbeing of our rainbow communities, we increased access to gender affirming genital surgery, we increased funding for HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention services and research. And Labour is relentlessly proud of our rainbow communities and their whānau.

I want to thank the Minister of Justice, the Hon Kris Faafoi, for getting this bill into the House so quickly after the general election only last year, and for working with our rainbow caucus and committees to finalise its provisions that are before us today. I also want to acknowledge the MPs from all sides of the House that have supported making lives better and more equal for our communities and their whānau. I would particularly like to acknowledge, also, other MPs in history that have made a contribution: the Hon Katherine O’Regan for her amendments to the Human Rights Act in 1993 to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or disease status; the Hon James Shaw for his work in the last Parliament, which will see sexual orientation and gender identity questions in the next census; and, of course, my colleague and friend Marja Lubeck, who received this petition from Young Labour and Young Greens, which led to her member’s bill, which is the precursor to the bill we have in front of us today. I mihi also to my takatāpui sister and whanaunga, Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, and my brother across the House, Rawiri Waititi, for their strong advocacy and support on this issue today.

This, indeed, is a part of our whakapapa and the story that I have just shared is whakapapa. And today it is in the spirit of kotahitanga that I believe our Parliament should approach this bill and move forward. One’s sexuality or one’s gender identity or gender expression is not a political issue, it is an issue of humanity. Members from all parties represented in this House have members of their whānau or someone else they love who belong to our rainbow communities. Our loved ones are looking to us all to collectively work together to prevent these harmful practices and give the dignity to unapologetically be who they are.

So I have to say that today I am hugely disappointed with the National Party for not supporting this bill even through to a select committee process where we can iron out any issues that they face. If we cannot be united as a Parliament to at least debate these issues and work through them for the betterment of our rainbow communities, we must question why we are here. Your decision today only creates division, and when division is created it puts our most marginalised people at the centre, and the backlash will take place again. By not supporting this bill, even to its first reading, it is a support to continue the practice of conversion therapy as status quo, and it is shameful.

Now, we all know that despite all of the years of progress that we have made in Aotearoa in the past 35 years since law reform, many in our rainbow communities still find it difficult to come out and live their authentic lives. The 2021 Youthline health and wellbeing survey of 36,000 students led out of Auckland University and Victoria University of Wellington reported that just over half—53 percent—of same-sex or multiple-sex - attracted students reported significant depressive symptoms. Half said that they had self-harmed in the past year. More than one in 10 had attempted suicide. Only 42 percent of rainbow rangitahi Māori report good wellbeing. More than half report symptoms of depression, and close to half report serious thoughts of suicide in the last year. Just over half—52 percent—of Pasifika rainbow young people report good wellbeing. Close to half report clinically significant symptoms of depression and over 40 percent report serious thoughts of suicide in the last year.

We hear you today and we see you, and these challenges are much higher than those recorded by non-rainbow young people. We have to act to protect our young people from the further harm that subjecting them to bogus conversion practices would cause, and let us be in no doubt that our rainbow communities are being targeted by these harmful practices—yes, even still today.

The 2019 Counting Ourselves Aotearoa New Zealand trans and non-binary health survey of more than 1,000 people found this: more than one in six, or 17 percent, reported that they had experienced conversion therapy—17 percent—and the same proportion said that a professional had tried to stop them from being trans or non-binary. A further 12 percent were not sure if this had happened to them. They questioned it. Participants reported a much higher rate of high or very high psychological distress than the rest of the population, and very high rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts of suicide.

It is time for us to act and put a stop to these destructive practices, which can include aversion therapy, where subjects are physically punished or forced to take cold showers if they become aroused by same-sex erotic images or thoughts; psychoanalysis; talk therapy, where subjects are repeatedly told their sexual orientation or gender expression is a mental illness that can be healed—and, evidentially, it cannot. These practices have no science, evidence, or medicine. Our rainbow communities do not need or want to be healed. We want to be respected, we want to be valued, and, most of all, we want to be loved for the people that we are.

I accept that some people hold a different view to me and may not support this bill even through the first reading. I hope that in time, all New Zealanders of Aotearoa will come to an acceptance of each other and not opt for the status quo. But this bill will not stop New Zealanders from expressing their opinions. The right to free speech is not impinged upon by this legislation.

As I wrap up, I acknowledge RainbowYOUTH, OUTLine, my friend Shaneel Lal and the Conversion Therapy Action Group, Young Labour, Young Greens, Young Nationals, InsideOUT, Silent Gays, and the many, many people that have come to support our first reading today.

Today, we kick off our journey to ban conversion practice. It is time we see each other. We want to be loved. Today, we start the journey, and I commend this bill to the House.

Before I put the question, can I explain to the members of the public that there are two motions that have to be passed. If the first one passes, the Clerk will read the bill, and then there’s a second one. If you can hold the applause until after the second one, that would be great.

The question is, That the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill be considered by the Justice Committee.

Members, as we have come to a time past 16.55, I declare that the House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 August 2021. Tēnā rā tātou.

The House adjourned at 4.55 p.m.