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 move, That the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

Can I begin with a quote from a submission to the Justice Committee. It reads: “We support the … intent of this bill, which, when passed into law, will provide protection for people to work through issues relating to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression without being forced or ‘strongly encouraged’ to undergo programmes, systems, or activities that seek to ‘change’ or supress their natural state.” That is a summation of the submission of the St Barnabas Anglican Church of Roseneath, and I thank them for it. It very plainly sets out the purpose of this piece of legislation, and shows that, despite some of the hyperbolic debate, most Kiwis know that this bill is well and truly overdue.

Conversion practices are based on the falsehood that a person’s sexual orientation, their gender identity, or gender expression can and should be changed. And I know that members on this side of the House utterly reject that falsehood, and that rejection is in our DNA. It is with great pride that I begin the second reading of the debate on this bill to prohibit these practices. I’m also proud that this prohibition is something that draws a line around our caucus and not through it. Our united view is that there is unquestionably no evidence to suggest that conversion practices work. There is, however, clear evidence of the real, serious, and life-altering harm that they can cause, and that is why Labour made a commitment at their 2020 election to ban these practices.

It is a fact that this bill has received the largest number of submissions to a select committee that this Parliament has seen, and so can I acknowledge all submitters and thank members of the Justice Committee for their deliberation. I know that the nature of the in-person submissions were challenging for many reasons—many harrowing stories of those who have suffered as a result of conversion practices were juxtaposed with those who remain stuck in a time where the diversity of gender and orientation was not accepted.

Taking into account the feedback from the submitters, the Justice Committee has recommended a few technical changes to make what the bill is trying to achieve even clearer, such as changes to the purpose clause and the definition of “serious harm” within the bill. The committee’s most extensive changes clarify the types of conduct which would and would not meet the definition of a “conversion practice”. A number of submitters thought that the definition of a “conversion practice” in the bill could be more specific, to remove any ambiguity about what a conversion practice is. This definition is a key part of the bill, and the committee has fine-tuned it, and I thank them for that. The committee has clarified that a conversion practice can be a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment”.

Additionally, the committee recommended adding a few examples of what a conversion practice is, to remove doubt about the sorts of practices that the piece of legislation addresses. It is important that the prohibition of conversion practices targets the right behaviour, and the bill is intended to promote, rather than interfere with, access to legitimate healthcare services. However, some submitters were concerned that the bill’s exclusion of health services provided by a health practitioner in accordance with their scope of practice might not be robust enough to stop conversion practices occurring in health settings. A number of submitters referred to the professional standards and codes of ethics practitioners are subject to, which could prevent them from being able to perform conversion practices. The committee heard these concerns, and has tightened up this clause, clause 5(2)(a), by removing the reference to a “scope of practice”, and instead referring to an action taken by a health practitioner providing a health service that is appropriate in their “reasonable professional judgement”, and “complies with all legal, professional, and ethical standards” to which they are subject.

An important aspect of the bill is balancing the need to prevent the harm that conversion practices cause with individual rights and freedoms. Some submitters expressed concern that the bill does not adequately provide and protect religious rights for freedom of expression. Others were concerned that the bill would impact on the ability for parents, whānau, and teachers to engage in open discussions with children about their sexuality and their gender. The bill is focused on banning conversion practices, which are done on the harmful premise that a person is broken and in need of fixing, and which the evidence tells us causes serious and life-altering harm. Unless a belief or a religious principle was expressed as part of a conversion practice being performed, then that sort of expression would not be impacted by the bill. For clarity, the bill already states that a conversion practice does not include the expression only of a religious principle or belief. The committee has amended this wording to make it clear that the expression of a non-religious belief would not be a conversion practice either.

I acknowledge that many submitters who supported the bill were concerned that it did not go far enough and, in particular, that the criminal offence has set the threshold for prosecution too high. The intention of this bill is not to criminalise all conduct, but to deter the performance of conversion practices and provide avenues for redress.

The bill provides a range of responses to the performance of conversion practices under both criminal and civil law regimes. The criminal offences in the bill are intended to capture the most serious of conduct. Recognising the consequences that can arise from a criminal conviction, the civil pathway created by the bill through the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Review Tribunal will allow for a constructive and educative process, with a focus on remedying harm and preventing it from happening again. By banning conversion practices in New Zealand, the Government intends to enhance the ability of rainbow communities to enjoy their rights and freedoms free from harm and discrimination.

At this point, I want to acknowledge the Labour movement for making sure that this piece of legislation was prioritised in this Parliament. Can I begin by acknowledging my colleague Marja Lubeck, who, as a member of this Parliament, has championed this issue. Can I also acknowledge my colleagues in our Labour Rainbow Caucus. Can I also acknowledge many of the rainbow Labour members in our whānau, and also Young Labour for championing this issue and making it policy and now seeing it take its final stages until legislation. Finally, can I acknowledge those who have first-hand experience of conversion practices. Your lived experience, your pain, your strength, and advocacy has led to these final stages of this bill, which will hopefully soon become law.

I’d like to leave the absolute final word to another submission, again, as proof that this bill has brought communities together. And I quote, “We believe that gender and sexual identity should be able to be explored in an accepting and supportive environment where agency lies with the individual and those who guide the conversation act in the role of facilitator versus authority figure. We believe that well-crafted legislation to ban conversion therapy will help eradicate these neglectful and abusive practices in Aotearoa New Zealand and will be a catalyst for more justice and inclusion.” Can I thank the ALT_Mary Anglican Church of New Plymouth for their submission. I commend this bill to the House.

Before I call the member, I just want to indicate to the House, as I did to the Business Committee, that while this is not a personal vote matter, I am going to treat it a bit more like a conscience vote when it comes to calls. There will be a bit more flexibility, a bit less party structure. And if people do want to indicate to me that—other than at the ninth call, which is a split call anyway—people want to only have five minutes, if they indicate that to me privately, that might get them priority in the speaking list.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I, for one, certainly do not support conversion therapy. It’s an outdated process, it can be harmful and dangerous when coercive, and I understand why many people feel very strongly about it. We heard many deeply moving examples through the course of the select committee process of people who have been affected by conversion therapy as it has been conducted. My intention is to support this bill at second reading. However, I will be introducing some Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) because while I support a bill banning the practice in a tight, clear, and targeted way, I do still have some concerns about the breadth and looseness of the language in the bill that has been constructed. I’m hoping that I might get a fair hearing from the Minister and the Labour Party, in particular.

My primary concerns are about maintaining freedom of thought and opinion, but also about respecting the role of parents, particularly in the complex area of children struggling with their gender identity, and wanting to make life-changing decisions around medical interventions that may have lifelong consequences. Because this bill that is being introduced is not just about praying the gay away and gay conversion therapy—which, I think, there is a broad range of agreement around—but it’s much broader and includes issues around gender identity. Thirdly, I want to ensure that proper discussions are had before any medical intervention in gender transitions—those discussions are not restricted in any way.

So in terms of the select committee process, as the Minister said, it generated a lot of submissions—107,000 submissions. Of the ones that were analysed, about 70 percent were in favour, and 30 percent were against. But, given the numbers involved, I’m not quite sure how they reached that conclusion with any accuracy. I do want to thank the submitters on all sides for taking the effort and having their say.

Sadly, not much has changed in the bill as reported back by the majority of the select committee. The New Zealand Law Society, for one, were worried about the broadness of the definition of conversion practice in the bill. And it was any practice that is directed towards an individual because of the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, and is performed with the intention of changing, or suppressing, the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

Now, as we know, the select committee has broadened, in my view, that definition to say now that it is any practice, sustained effort, or treatment that’s directed at an individual, and is done with the intention of changing or supressing and individual’s identity or sexuality. Now, my real concern is that, given the very broad definition of a conversion practice, it can be interpreted very widely. One way of reading that is to say that a conversion practice—for which, if somebody is found guilty, they can go to jail for three years—could include any sustained effort that is done with the intention of supressing someone’s gender identity.

So what does that actually mean in practice—to understand the effect such a law, with serious legal consequences, would have—the risk of going to prison, or being hauled before the Human Rights Commission—to understand what impact that has on behaviour. What I, for one, don’t want to see is parents being afraid to talk openly and frankly about important issues with their kids, particularly when confronted with a child who wants to change their gender, who asserts that they are a different gender, and they want to start puberty blockers, or more invasive medical treatments. My worry is that the natural reaction, given vague law and large consequences, is for parents, and even potentially medical professionals, to hang back. It’s safer just to affirm whatever is asserted, and agree rather than to challenge. And so, in my view, it is important.

One of the most fundamental questions that should be asked when making decisions of this sort, which may have lifelong consequences around the ability to have children, and a whole host of other areas—the most basic medical question one should ask is, “Do you really want to do this?” It’s an important question to ask, and I talked to my mother about this two years ago—she gave my father a kidney. She couldn’t just give him a kidney; she went through a very long, detailed process where she was asked many times, “Do you really want to do this?” That’s basic kind of medical practice.

All I want is nothing in this bill to limit those discussions in any way, given the natural reaction of people to be cautious when laws are passed where they could go to jail, or be hauled before the Human Rights Commission if they get it wrong.

Now, all the reports that we’ve had from officials have assured us that the bill does not stop the expression of opinion, and that it doesn’t stop medical professionals asking tough questions, and it doesn’t capture parents declining to give consent to medical interventions. So they’ve made those assurances, but, of course, officials don’t always get things right, and the legislation, as it is introduced, is, arguably, not 100 percent clear. So I would bring SOPs to the committee stage, trying to make those things clear.

The select committee has included in the bill examples of conversion practices because, I think, there’s an acknowledgment that the definition of a conversion practice is rather vague, and so they’ve included examples of conversion practices, such as using shame or coercion intending to give an individual an aversion to same-sex attractions, or to encourage gender-conforming behaviour.

My suggestion is that we include three examples that are not conversion practices, to make it very clear that, just for clarity, so that prosecutors, so that lawyers and parents understand what is not a conversion practice, and I would include the expression of any opinion. Secondly, another example of what is not a conversion practice under this legislation: a parent, or caregiver, withholding consent for a medical intervention, in relation to gender transition, in what they consider the child’s best interests, for example. The third one would be a health practitioner frankly outlining the risks, consequences, and merits of medical intervention in relation to gender transition. Now, the officials have said, “No, no, they’re not captured.” They’ve given us that assurance—well, why don’t we use that as an example of something that is not a conversion practice according to this bill, so that we can have that reassurance. The purpose of it is simply to say, yes, let’s make sure this legislation is properly targeted on conversion practices that cause harm, but it doesn’t, in any way, restrict the important, and necessary, and appropriate discussions that parents and medical practitioners should have with young people, in particular, before they’re making important decisions about what could potentially be life-changing medical decisions.

My hope is that the Minister and Labour will consider that, that the logic is pretty sound. If you’ve got a bill which has a very broad definition and has to have a whole bunch of exclusions or things that are not included by the bill, and then some examples, then why not have a few examples just making it absolutely clear that expressing an opinion is not going to be falling into the definition of any sustained effort to supress something; and, secondly, that parents do have the ability to not agree to medical interventions for their children—and that is not included in this legislation—and that full and frank and robust discussions with medical practitioners, before any such major decisions are made, is also not a conversion practice. My hope is that that will be considered over the next few stages of the bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I am proud of the Labour Party’s strong track record on gay rights and improving the rights of our rainbow community, and I’m proud that this bill continues that legacy.

As the chair of the select committee, we received a record-breaking 107,000 written submissions on this bill, and I think that speaks to the heart of the level of engagement and interest in the topic that lies before us tonight. I thought it was important, as the chair, to kind of break down quickly where they came from. So approximately 61,000 of those written submissions came from form submissions—those that were generated online through a portal—and we worked with Opposition members in agreement that we would not have oral submissions from those that were simply a straightforward pro-forma submission. So we unanimously agreed on going ahead and analysing the 38,900 submissions. And of those 38,900, 69 percent supported the bill and 30 percent opposed. So there’s approximately a 70-percent support for this legislation going ahead. Of all of those submissions, the committee heard in person around 800, which took a significant amount of time—I think approximately 18 sessions of sitting for full days.

At times, it was incredibly hard-going to hear those submissions from both sides of the debate. At times, I was brought to near tears and, at other times, I felt quite intense anger. I would like to acknowledge all MPs that contributed to listening through those submissions. I think it’s an incredibly valuable part of our democratic process, and I think all those who submitted should be acknowledged for taking the time to contribute to what we’ve reached today.

The intent of this bill is incredibly important—and I want to spell that out—because the legislative objectives of this bill will assist in how that is interpreted over time. The number one intent is to prevent harm. The second legislative objective of the bill is to encourage safe, respectful conversations around sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression. I think that is really important, because one of the main arguments that we heard from some members of the Opposition in the first reading and also from some submitters through the select committee process was that the role of parents was compromised in some way, that there was a concern or a fear that conversations between a parent and their child would somehow be criminalised. And so, for that purpose, I think it’s incredibly important for me to read out the section that provides the specific advice in and around that point that is being raised in concern: “We consider that a clear expression of contrary opinion or a failure to act by parents or family members would not meet the requirements for the definition in this bill as they cannot be directed towards or performed on a person.” As such, the definition would not capture, for example, a parent not supporting their child to seek support for gender dysphoria, withholding consent for the administration of puberty blockers, or advising a wait-and-see approach to gender-affirming care.

I think it’s important, also, to note that people who are struggling with their sexuality or gender should be able to receive the support they need, including that ability to explore their identity or to reconcile their faith and sexuality. However, rather than being supportive or exploratory, conversion practices are external attempts to achieve a predetermined outcome of changing or suppressing a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. In a nutshell, it’s identifying or seeing being gay is wrong or broken, and that is where we on this side find a problem and why conversion practices should be made illegal. Being gay is not wrong or broken; it’s part of someone’s identity, and it can’t be “fixed”.

The intent of this bill is not to criminalise all conduct but to deter the performance of conversion practices and to provide avenues for redress. And, for that purpose, part of the clarification that the committee did was to be very clear about what was captured as being a conversion practice. And, for that purpose, the committee actually gave specific examples of what would classify: using shame or coercion with the intention of giving a person an aversion to same-sex attractions or to encourage gender-conforming behaviour. Another example would be to encourage a person to believe that their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression needs changing because it is a defect or disorder; or carrying out a prayer-based practice, deliverance practice, or exorcism with the intention of changing or suppressing their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

Before this bill even had a first reading, I met somebody in my electorate office who came and gave me some material that they had written, and they explained that they had been, over a 20-year period, conducting conversion practices. They came to me in concern just about hearing that this bill was progressing, and they had taken down all notifications on their website in fear that their practices may result in being prosecuted. It took me the progression of this bill to realise that that’s exactly the intent of what this bill is. It’s not to prosecute; it is to deter these practices—those that are incredibly harmful to our rainbow community.

The other changes that the bill has outlined have already been mentioned by the Minister, but in relation to health practitioners. And this was a refinement. A number of the submitters referred to the professional standards code of ethics that practitioners are subject to, which would prevent them from being able to perform conversion practices. The committee heard these concerns and, as a result of listening to those submissions, tightened up the clause. And we did this by removing the reference to “scope of practice” and instead referring to an action taken by a health practitioner in providing a health service that is appropriate in their reasonable professional judgment and complies with all legal, professional, and ethical standards to which they are subject. And I think that’s an improvement on the bill.

I will admit I phoned a friend for a quote for tonight, because I was searching for a good quote, and the one I arrived at was from Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. And he said in his famous “Hope” speech, “Unless you have dialogue, unless you open the walls of dialogue, you can never reach to change people’s opinion … Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice.” I hope that this bill takes a step towards that direction in order to open those walls of dialogue and to break down prejudice.

I’d like to close by stating that the two main purposes of this bill that underpin it is to prevent harm, harm to our communities, harm to our rainbow communities, and secondly, it is to promote those discussions, those open dialogues around our kitchen or dinner tables that parents, children, community groups—whoever they are—can be open and free to explore their identity without limitation or fear. Mr Speaker, I commend this bill to the House.

Oh, that was easy! Thanks, Mr Speaker. I’m actually not going to be voting for this bill. It probably isn’t a surprise to members across the other side of the House. It’s partly a consistency issue. I voted against it at first reading because I thought the bill was problematic, and now that it’s come through select committee I think it’s arguably more problematic, and I might just expand on that.

I want to acknowledge the previous speaker Ginny Andersen and the work that she’s done, taking the bill through the Justice Committee. She used, I think, at one level appropriately, a quote from Harvey Milk, talking about dialogue. The irony of this bill is it’s not actually about dialogue; it’s trying to limit speech. It’s actually stopping dialogue. The explicit intention of this bill is to stop dialogue. It’s to deter. That’s probably the underlying reason why I have concerns about this bill. It’s firmly in the area of free speech. I’ve always been very wary, and will continue to be very wary, of any legislation that comes into this House which seeks to limit or compel speech. Arguably, and we’ve heard it from a couple of others who have spoken earlier, the definitions that have come through the select committee process make it more ambiguous, and maybe we can tease that out little.

Look, first and foremost, if this bill was truly and simply about conversion practices, as I think most of us intuitively and connotatively understand, it would be a no-brainer to support it. It would be relatively easy. The bill, unfortunately, goes so much further than that. Arguably, a lot of it could be solved by tightening up some of the definitions to give surety, and my colleague the Hon Paul Goldsmith has touched on some of that. Because we did hear from some amazing submitters. I mean, you read through the submissions themselves—deeply, deeply felt, and some who were actually proud supporters of the LGBTQIA+ community spoke against this bill, because it went too far. They don’t themselves want to be converted but they do want to have conversations; it’s as simple as that.

I’ve got lesbian and gay friends who are concerned about this bill because actually that community, the LGBTQIA+ community, is not a single cohesive unit. As one acquaintance put to me, “As a gay man,” he said, “actually, in today’s day and age I’d be afraid that I’d be told actually I’m really just needing something gender affirming—I’m not actually a gay man; I’m a woman and I just need to explore that.” He feels his identity as a gay man could be erased with the modern zeitgeist at the moment that’s is more around transgender issues. That’s his experience. It’s only one of them, but I do put to those colleagues voting for this bill: how does he and others have a genuine dialogue without the fear that he is, or those talking to him are, going to be captured by this bill? Because as I keep saying, unfortunately—and I do want to stress that because as I keep wanting to repeat—if this was a narrow well-defined bill around conversion practices, we’d be fine—we’d be fine. But it’s now about sustained effort. It’s about wider treatments. And it was also put forward by the previous speaker around examples of conversion practices of someone who may encourage here gender-conforming behaviour. Does that capture biological women who want to use biological terms like “she” and “her”? Is that going to offend people who actually want different pronouns? Maybe it does. I don’t know—

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

—and that’s the whole point. This bill is so broad, and they laugh because they don’t particularly care. They don’t seem to care that this bill comes with criminal and civil consequences. This is very serious.

The bill here in black and white: an example of a conversion practice is something sustained that may be directed towards an individual—sorry, I’ve read the wrong line here; using shame or coercion that’s intended to give an individual an aversion to their attraction or to encourage gender-conforming behaviour.

Maybe the sustained use of a traditional pronoun against someone who prefers something different will be seen as problematic. And again I want to stress, particularly to anyone at home who is having conniptions, I don’t know and I suspect they don’t know. There isn’t the clarity in this bill. As I say, it’s gone broader; the definitions have gone much, much broader. I don’t have the confidence in what officials have told us and that is no disrespect to them personally, but what I don’t like is inconsistency and what I don’t like is what I would term as Orwellian doublespeak. So when they have been questioned around parental rights, when they’ve had questions put to them around prayer and so forth, the answer is “Oh no, one can still have conversations so long as it’s affirming the child. It’s OK for the Muslim imam to preach as long as they’re preaching in an affirming statement.” That’s double speak. That raises alarms.

And again, the simple thing, for someone like me, because I’m a simple man, is I just want a clear definition.

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

They think they’re funny and insulting on issues like this, and this is what puts out further red lights to people like myself. There’s an underlying arrogance here, which ultimately draws us back to that free speech, because ultimately free speech is built on respect. And I might suggest to those voting for this, it also relies on proper dialogue.

And you know what? Free speech is harmful. Free speech is not safe. Free speech is sometimes not respectful. That’s the nature of it. And that’s how for 6,000 years of recorded history, humanity has moved forward. And that’s why I vote against this bill. It’s not that you want to go out and cause harm. It’s not that you want to go out and make people unsafe. It’s not that you want them to feel disrespected. You know what? Conversations, at times, are difficult; they are challenging. And the underlying paradox in this bill is that in preventing the conversion of some, the bill is seeking to make sure others convert their minds, that they’re not allowed to say, think, pray, or feel a certain opinion. This bill goes far too far—far too far.

And I want to just end with I suppose it’s just one last little observation, because you can sort of feel that this bill—as I say, it’s a bit like trying to break a chestnut with a sledgehammer. It’s just that intuitive feel that it just goes a little too far; in fact, far too far. And it’s an interesting observation: the two examples the Minister chose to use in his speech. Why, of the thousands of submissions, was the Minister so interested, of all things, to quote the Anglican Church? For those who know me well, there’s possibly a double entendre there. But why quote the Anglican Church? Why such a focus on the Christian churches? I’m not going to answer it. I think those at home have their suspicions. But this is ultimately a bill which has to be opposed because it is an attempt to limit speech.

I want to end by where I started, that if this bill was simply looking to define conversion practices, as we all intuitively know and reject, we’d be there—we’d be there.

💬 Hon Kris Faafoi: It’d help if you’d read it.

Well, the problem is I have read it, and that’s actually probably one of the fundamental issues, because the Minister—sorry, for those listening—said I’d better read it. The funny thing is, I’ve read it multiple times. I’ve read the original, I’ve compared it with the existing, I’ve gone and talked to QCs, even, who are giving us quite interesting opinions of where this could go—even talking to justices and judges who say, “Well, actually, with the way it’s defined at the moment, we could end up with an array of interpretations.”

That is fundamentally the point that I’m wanting to put out there—that if this was clear, well defined, we’d be there in spades. But it’s not. And fundamentally, it’s ultimately very little, in my mind, actually, strictly even to do with the LGBTIQA community per se. It’s ultimately an issue of free speech and free rights. And as I also said, whenever it comes to that, when it comes to free speech and the ability for people to have conversations and not be criminalised for having conversations, I will oppose the legislation and will do so, but will be watching with great interest of how the dialogue continues with the Supplementary Order Papers from my colleague Paul Goldsmith.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There’s a Welsh word, “hwyliau”, and one of its meanings is “boat sails”—that full sense of pace and purpose is blowing from this side of the House to embed the rights of our rainbow communities. This is who we are on this side of the House, saying “No” to conversion therapy as a unified team, saying “Yes” to equality and “Yes” to embedding human rights in our domestic legislative architecture as a unified team. I’m going to riff off my colleague Ginny Andersen and also quote Harvey Milk. He also said, “Hope will never be silent.”, and for those of us on the Justice Committee, the last five months has been anything but silent. I suspect we’ll all remember that day in September when we sat down and the exhausted-looking clerks told us just how many submissions that we had—just under 107,000. And, sure, some people didn’t agree with the purpose of the bill, but volumes and volumes of people did—“Hope will never be silent.”

Of the 38,900 submissions that were unique submissions, 69 percent supported the bill. So we caught our breath and wrapped our heads around the historic numbers of submissions, we reorganised into subcommittees, and we sat in 18 hearings to receive those oral submissions. But what we couldn’t have planned for was the volume of human experience that flooded into the room as we heard stories from people who had been subject to conversion therapy themselves; from friends who had supported their friends for years, from family members who’d done the same; and from a multitude of people who had been and continued to be discriminated against. While we immersed ourselves in the policy, what will remain the most vivid memory for me will be the people who Zoomed into those virtual rooms.

I had the privilege of chairing the first subcommittee to hear submissions, and the representatives from Victoria University rainbow law society were first up, and I’ll always remember they gave each other a glance that felt like it said both “Here we go.”, and “Here we are.” I’ll remember the submitters who brought along support people with them, and while I was listening attentively to the submitters themselves, every now and then I glanced across at their support person who was just beaming love and pride in the direction of their family member. It was incredibly powerful and a reinforcement that rainbow rights so often aren’t won from inside the closet, but are won on the back of voices of some of the most courageous people who I’ve had the privilege to meet over the course of these hearings.

I’ll remember those who submitted who came from an ethnic background, who talked about their rainbow experience and what it meant to be subject to attempts to change who they were. To those ethnic community members who submitted, something perhaps they already know: diverse gender identities are boundless in this world and equality is not a Western invention—its genesis sits inside us all. But responding to their submissions, to that group’s challenge, while we make this significant law change, we actively need to work to ensure young people from diverse backgrounds are fully supported to navigate unearthing their identity in the cultural context that’s very real to them.

I’ll also remember the detail of some of our submitters’ words. One submitter said, “As a queer person, it’s painful to accept that conversion practices are still legal in Aotearoa in 2021. There is no justification for the erasure of our people. While conversion practices remain legal in Aotearoa, my human rights cannot be my human reality.”

I want to also commend Ginny Andersen, our chair, but also our select committee as a whole. I do believe that we collectively listened in a really respectful way, and where the majority landed—in terms of recommendations from the subcommittee—has provided a greater sense of clarity in terms of the scope of the bill, which my colleagues have spoken to. The purpose clause now explicitly acknowledges that conversion practices are inherently harmful. We also proposed amendments to the meaning of “conversion therapy” to include treatment or sustained effort, which ensured there was coverage of both one-off and cumulative acts. The committee also proposed amending clause 5 to include examples of what constitutes a conversion practice, incorporating the examples of the legislation in Queensland and Victoria. We also amended clause 5(2)(f), which a number of speakers have referred to, to clarify that not only is expressing a religious principle or belief not within the sphere of what is conversion therapy, but neither is expressing a personal belief that’s not religious, which was an issue raised on the opposite side of the House that is now covered in the bill. I just also wanted to point out that while those were changes that were made to the bill in select committee stage, actually, clause 5(2) of the bill is all about clarifying what is not conversion therapy. These are not exceptions; this is all about clarifying what is not conversion therapy.

Likewise, there was concern that gender affirming care or supporting a gender transition could perhaps be classified as conversion therapy and we were very clear that that was not the case. We also noted that the bill would not amend legislation around decisions concerning the healthcare of children, including the prescription of puberty blockers.

There is a myth perpetuated by some that free speech is under attack. This is politics. I understand the “why”, but it’s too easy to frame it this way and to do so ignores the physiology and the character of what a right is. Free speech has never been absolute. It’s always been bound by Mill’s harm principle and, in this case, serious harm. Boundaries placed around this and other rights interwoven into so many aspects of our legislative framework are a part of what our legislative system is—defamation, perjury, false advertising, obscenity, profanity, solicitation of a crime. The boundaries are explicitly stated in the Harmful Digital Communications Act—which the Opposition party will be very familiar with—the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act, and other legislation. They are boundaried as a matter of the very process of developing legislation by the task that section 5 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act asks of us, which foresees and expects an exercise of justified limitations. Legislative leadership doesn’t mean declaring that rights should be unboundaried. It requires us to actively consider harm. It requires us to be coherent, not just to place reasonable limitations on a right to protect something like reputation, but also to do so where exercise of a right creates serious and long-term psychological harm.

The boat sails are blowing on this unified side of the House as we progress a robust and responsible rights agenda. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora. Tēnā koe e te Māngai, tēnā koe o te Whare. Although I’ve often been in my office over the last few weeks, this is my first time speaking in the House; it is lovely to see all of you here.

💬 Hon Member: Welcome back.

Kia ora. Even better, we are progressing the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. On the trail of amending the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 2021 in the last week of Parliament last year, this is great progress. We’re not saying this is perfect, but as long as we’re progressing, that is always a good, good thing.

Thank you to the Justice Committee for having me join them for the months and months of hearings by four subcommittees. So mihi atu ki a Dr Emily Henderson, who very ably and competently chaired subcommittee C, and to my colleague Mark Mitchell, I think we can safely say that was shared experience we will never forget.

As has been stated, we received nearly 107,000 submissions to this bill. That speaks to the energy around this topic, but I know when people were sending messages to us back a year ago when we did our petition, people could not believe this was still happening in our country, and I think, even though our submitters had very wide-ranging views, every single one still said they don’t support conversion practices. So I think that is a huge indication of where our country has moved to.

About—as also has been said—38,900 submissions had unique content, and those are the ones we engaged with. So about 70 percent of those were positive, so that means approximately 68,000 voices were actually lost in this process because they were identified as form submissions, even if they added unique text to that form. So I think this is a very important lesson for our community organisers: that if you’re out there encouraging people to engage in our democratic process, absolutely this is critical, we need that, go for it—go with guidelines, not necessarily templates. Always encourage submissions that are unique, because three lines of authentic voice have more weight than the most beautifully crafted and carefully articulated submission that was written by someone else. Shout-out to Chargn Keenan, who organised our webinars to explain this bill to people, and to Rainbow Greens, who guided thousands of people to submit in their own words.

Several things stood out for me when we were hearing these hundreds of submissions. The first was the willingness of survivors and people who have experienced conversion practices, and many who came to me as well, who said they’d never thought about what happened to them as being conversion practices but realised through this process that it was, and decades later that is still affecting many, many people. Many of those stories were heart-rending, and that trauma is still there—those people still need to be looked after, they still need care, because that harm was usually done by trusted people.

The second thing that stood out for me was how rainbow communities, our whānau, and our allies rallied to respond to two bills happening at the same time. It was a lot of work, it was hundreds of pages of submissions, it was a lot of meetings, webinars—that’s just in the last five minutes, but it represents the culmination of decades of work of people to get to this point.

But I’m really sorry for the amount of abuse and misinformation that was directed to members of rainbow communities or was expressed about them. It was awful to listen to, and especially—when I was a young activist at the time of the homosexual law reform, we were marching down the streets and doing our protests and we were meeting with the local MPs. At that time, we were writing strongly worded letters. And we heard many of the same arguments that we heard in these hearings; we heard it back then, we heard it in the Civil Union Act, and we heard it in the marriage equality. So there’s a standard narrative that gets used against our community. It’s kind of a distilled version of the discrimination that many parts of our community face.

The biggest difference between all of those, though, and this bill, was the way that the anti-trans lobby weaponised it against trans people. That was remarkable to me. And even though it was, ultimately, unsuccessful, they caused a lot of harm and spread a lot of misinformation that exists to this date. So for this record—for this record: puberty blockers cannot be obtained as easily as lollies. No family in this country is going to jail for reacting really badly when their child comes out to them or tells them they want to transition. We want to give all the support that’s needed to whānau for them to have really healthy—and sometimes loud—conversations about what’s going on, and the right of any whānau to look after their children especially.

I hope for those people who were brought up in a way that their belief, their religion, is core to who they are that this was a healing thing, because when I was brought up Catholic, and back in 1986 and homosexual law reform, the Unitarian Church was one of the only churches that supported that law, and the Salvation Army led every other church against it. To have the Salvation Army and every other mainstream church come to submit in support of the bill and to be categorical that it did not jeopardise, or they did not believe that it affected their expression of belief and religion. The Greens have a principal in our charter of appropriate decision making that the decisions should be made by those who are most affected by it. So for me, as someone who doesn’t belong to any particular religion, that has my Māori spirituality, I take their advice then, I take their guidance. I’m pleased that we decided not to add something and that we can actually trust that our churches, our places of worship will be safe for everybody who goes to them, who belongs to them, and that those churches can have these conversations without fear—because realistically, with a law that says the Attorney-General has to decide whether someone is going to jail or not, we can be pretty sure no one is going to jail.

One of the things that was added to the bill through the committee process was about the definition of “conversion practices”, and I think this is really important, because lots of people have things in their mind, but we need to have the same understanding. However, for the first time the words “gender identity” and “gender expression” are also going into law, for the first time in this country, with no definition. So I think we’ll be putting in a Supplementary Order Paper tomorrow to say, “That’s actually quite important to define so people know what we’re talking about in this law.”

My last point is for people who intersex, whether they belong to rainbow communities or not, and I am sad that sex characteristics was not added to gender identity and gender expression. We tried to do that. We did get a section added into the committee report that acknowledges what the Government is undertaking to a rights-based approach that focuses on ensuring that intersex people and their whānau have all the relevant information and support they need to make informed decisions and to support health practitioners to provide best-practice healthcare for intersex people. I look forward to the time when I can stand up in this House and support that bill.

Clearly, we’re in support of this bill. We are thankful that this House is moving this forward. Just a final word to all of the people who we know are experiencing this right now—because it has not stopped, it’s happening right now—this is a stake in the ground, it is not acceptable, and we will be stopping it. Kia ora.

I stand to speak on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. And before I begin, I think it’s really important to take some time to, first of all, acknowledge the submitters—the 107,000 people who made the effort, whether to support or not, but to get in touch with Parliament and utilise their ability to have a voice in the way that we construct our legislation. Their voices were clear—very clear—on both sides. I think it’s also important to acknowledge the debate that continues to happen in this House this evening, because, while we have one side that says the legislation is very clear, there is obviously, on the other side, debate about just how clear it is and how much clearer it could be. But what I do want to acknowledge is everybody’s individual views and party views, because I think that they are all important in this important piece of legislation.

I’d also like to acknowledge the work of the officials and the clerks. Those submissions were absolutely huge, and they had to process them in a very short time frame. They worked extremely hard and over long hours, and I would like to specifically acknowledge the efforts that they made.

I’d also like to acknowledge the difficulty that New Zealanders as a whole, on both sides of this debate, have feared as we have gone through this select committee stage. There has been concern mentioned by submitters about how far the legislation goes, and there was also concern mentioned by submitters about how far it doesn’t go, so trying to find that balance was extremely hard for the officials and also for the Justice Committee. And in that respect, I’d like to acknowledge the work of the committee across the House in bringing in other MPs during the submission process so that everybody could partake in that select committee process. I’d like to acknowledge the challenging aspects, as I mentioned beforehand, and there’s still some challenges before us as we head into the committee of the whole House after this reading.

Finally in my acknowledgments: Paul Goldsmith, I really enjoyed listening to your views, and I think that you articulated those issues really, really well.

💬 David Seymour: He doesn’t do that every day!

No, he doesn’t; that’s why I thought it was important to actually say I thought he did a good job there.

Now, our view is that—and when I submitted the differing view on behalf of the ACT Party it was because I needed to express our concerns. We did so in the first reading. And while some changes have been made to the legislation, we don’t think that those changes went far enough. We do think what we did was good, but we don’t think that it’s very clear—or as clear as we want it to be.

The chair of the Justice Committee, Ginny Andersen, read out clauses that she said we would be expected to be able to define: the fact that having a discussion with mum and dad would not be concluded as being a conversion therapy, but when you have aspects such as a “sustained effort” and not defining about those conversations, then of course there will be concern that those parents could actually be brought into the realm of a potential prosecution. Our concerns were acknowledged by the Justice Committee, and they were also acknowledged by the officials, and they did try to remedy those concerns.

We were looking to seek a balance: a balance between what is harmful and, of course, the freedom of speech and the freedom of thought—autonomy in both respects, without having harm to either. We also wanted to address the concerns about the parental rights being lost. Of course, this comes back to the “sustained efforts”. Addressing our concerns about the free speech implications, about the unravelling of democracy—and that happens with the removal of a person to be able to consent to what happens to themselves. The United Nations declaration on human rights and our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act have been justifiably excluded in some of the clauses, and we don’t think that is the right route to go down.

It’s quite difficult to find a genuine path that would give us an effective bill that balances the legislation in a way that we are all seeking. By not excluding parental conversations outright, the Government, effectively, creates a fear about the authority the Government is giving to itself via the Attorney-General being able to place his role directly into our homes, making decisions about the conversations that are being held as a parent with a minor and whether or not a prosecution could entail. So we just don’t believe that the balance there had been met. But on the other side of this discussion, we also recognise the harm of conversion practices, as experienced by individuals and families—the balancing against harm experienced by the LGBTQIA+ community, because this community also has rights as individuals. They should be able to be themselves without interference, without harm being placed against them. They also have the right to have autonomy over themselves.

So we want to send a very clear message that we do not accept harm against those that express themselves or those that want to seek guidance. We would hope that in some way, perhaps, this legislation will stop teachers in schools asking students to justify their sexuality to them, as is happening at present, because many parents see that as a harmful practice too.

In order to try and find some balance, we have prepared two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). They are ready, but unfortunately there is a problem with the computer system, and the clerks are struggling to get those SOPs through, but they have been done. We would like to ensure that conversations between parents and children—just the conversations—are exempt. That will give clarity to the parents and to those in their homes that it’s OK to continue to have these discussions.

Our second SOP would ensure that there would be a three-year initial review of the Act, followed by five-yearly reviews. This was suggested but it was not incorporated into the bill. If the review is actually justified, then we can strengthen the Act; and if it’s not, then we have lost nothing. So by being able to have a review, it actually means that we can look at whether or not the Act is going to work. And if it doesn’t, we can fix it, and if it does, it will be all good—we won’t lose anything.

In the meantime, the ACT Party has decided to continue to support this bill, because we would hope that consideration of our SOPs and the changes that we want to implement to give that further clarity and find better balance will be able to go through at the next stage in the committee of the whole House, allowing us to continue to support the bill.

The best we can do is to find some balance and the ability to ensure that those 107,000 submitters actually all have a voice, whether they agreed to this bill or not, that we can take in everybody’s views and alleviate the fears that parents have of the intrusion in their homes. But at this stage, we will support, because we believe that everybody has the right to have the freedom to choose about who they are and how they conduct themselves. Thank you.

Tēnā koe Madam Speaker, ā, tēnei te mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa, ngā mema Pāremata, ā, tēnei te mihi aroha ki ngā tāngata e mātakitaki mai ki te pouaka whakaata hoki.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker. Warm greetings to all the members of Parliament, and it is with love that I greet the people also watching on television.]

To those watching the passage of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill tonight, I said, i tōku reo rangatira [in my noble language], it is with love that I greet you, because it is with love in all its forms that this Government celebrates tonight with the second reading of this bill.

You know that this bill inspired a record number of submissions. It started the conversation which has been building for many years in the Labour movement about what is acceptable for our rangatahi who undergo these conversion practices to be exposed to and the harm that it causes, and I was blown away by the passion and the emotion of those submitters. It’s not often that our select committee process inspires the next generation of Māori and Pacific young people to come forward, but, time and time again, we heard from Māori parents, from rangatahi Māori, and from young Pacific people from all over the country who wanted to speak to this process because it was something dear to their hearts and they wanted to change things for the better.

People like Timoti, who joined the committee to talk about why this legislation is needed and to protect young people in the formative stages of their lives. He joined us one morning, as my colleagues in the House have reflected on, when we were split into the many subcommittees that heard these submissions, and it was just me and the Hon Simon Bridges. He shared with us some really powerful reflections on growing up as a young Māori man. He told us that we didn’t need a crystal ball to see the harm done to Māori over generations by practices intended to change our identity, to mould us into something other than our unique identity. He told us to look to the high rates of depression, of suicide, and of incarceration borne by Māori—mostly Māori men like him. Whether it’s the denial of our reo or our sexuality and gender, Māori are living proof that intolerance of expression and identity damages not only the individual but their children, their whānau, and their whakapapa.

People like Waima, a Māori mum of five, who joined the committee to tell us why she didn’t want her children to experience the conversion practices that so deeply affected her brother when they were growing up. As a parent, she reflected on the type of conversation she could have with her children, and how she would never and could never do to them what she, as a sister, had seen done to the brother she loved.

I want to address some of the points raised on the other side of the House tonight: firstly, this idea that parents will be banned from speaking with their children and that it’s stopping dialogue. The expression of religious and non-religious belief will not be covered by this legislation, and, as free speech, it’s still protected. The intention of this bill is not to criminalise this conduct, but to capture the egregious example of those practices. We know that conversion practices, even when they’re done or encouraged by parents, don’t work, but rather, in most cases, they cause serious and long-term harm, regardless of whether they are done by parents to their own children.

Conversion practices in 2020: we’re now ensuring that this promise to rangatahi in this situation is delivered on, and the purpose of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill is to encourage these safe and open discussions around sexuality and gender expressions that most parents who submitted to the Justice Committee were concerned about. The bill strikes what I think is the right balance between outlining the harm that conversion practices cause and the individual rights and freedoms of the people they are done to. It respects the rights of parents to speak with children about decisions to seek medical advice and treatment that affirms their identity and themselves.

Further, this bill protects parents from practices that may do harm to their family unbeknownst to them. I’m grateful to a submitter from a well-known church who submitted to the committee about her own experiences joining a church as a teenager from a household that didn’t attend. She talked about the guilt and shame that she felt when her pastors came to her and wanted to speak with her about her sexuality and her gender identity, and the worry she felt about talking with her parents about the practice that she had been exposed to in a church that they didn’t approve of. This bill draws a line under those practices and it protects parents, as well.

The second idea is that the wording is too unclear in the bill and that it creates too much confusion. But the definition is clear: conversion practices are the most severe, and they cause the most serious harm. Conversion practices and the sort of serious harm they cause are severe depression and anxiety, isolation and alienation, and increased feelings of shame and grief. They also cause difficulty with forming relationships, they might cause substance abuse, and there is a possible risk of suicide attached. Some research identifies survivors of conversion practices as experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and that is what the bill has set out to address. It’s not about using the wrong pronouns. It’s not about engaging in conversations with peers where you use the wrong terms. This is about the harm done to people, predominantly young people—predominantly people who are not used to having their identities affirmed in the first place.

Thirdly, this idea that the bill has gone too far. Well, the bill uses both criminal and civil law to prohibit and deter the performance of conversion practices, and this is a nuanced approach because it doesn’t use a heavy-handed approach of criminal sanctions only.

The bill creates two new criminal offences, where there is either a heightened risk of harm, as is the case of conversion practices performed on people under the age of 18 or people with impaired decision-making capacity, or where it can be demonstrated that a person has suffered serious harm as a result of the conversion practice. These criminal offences are intended to capture particularly serious cases and to send a clear message that conversion practices are unacceptable and should not be appearing here in Aotearoa.

But the civil redress scheme also creates a civil pathway for redress, and this involves the Human Rights Commission, which will be able to receive complaints about conversion practices and provide services to facilitate resolution. Where a complaint cannot be resolved using the commission’s services, a claim can be taken to the Human Rights Review Tribunal, and the tribunal will be able to grant a range of remedies such as a declaration that a wrong has occurred, an order restraining a person or organisation from continuing to perform the conversion practices, or an award of damages. This allows a two-track process, which is fair and nuanced in this case.

This idea, as well, the bill, is not about the LGBTI communities, but is, in fact, about limiting free speech—I wanted to address this quickly, because that’s simply not the case. This bill has been developed alongside rainbow communities from all around the country by members of rainbow communities from all around the country in service to people from those backgrounds all around the country, and we are accountable to rainbow communities around the country tonight. This is about advancing progress for the rainbow people we are trying to protect here.

There was a final note that I wanted to touch on from my colleague Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, who talked about the role of community organisers within this process. She said that submissions to Parliament are powerful and advice about the three lines of authentic voice being powerful as well—that is true. But community organising for the rights of marginalised people is something I am passionate about, and so I have to add to that.

Organisers whose power comes from their connection to their whānau or their aiga, who are trying to bring their whānau with them on hard issues like conversion therapy within their church—those are the people we should stand beside, and organisers need a movement. We get to pass legislation like this in the House tonight because we are bringing people with us, and this is a movement which calls those organisers to be a part of it.

This is a movement that has boosted mental health support, ensuring diversity of identity and sexual orientation doesn’t present barriers to accessing support. We’re the first Government to provide targeted nationwide funding for mental health services supporting rainbow young people to ensure that they can access support when they need it. This Government supported transition, helping trans people access the care they needed by reducing wait times for gender affirming surgery and lifting the cap on the number of publicly funded surgeries. This is a movement which ensured HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention services in New Zealand are targeted appropriately, ensuring rainbow communities aren’t disadvantaged in terms of healthcare, and it invested $300,000 in research updating behavioural information, like HIV and STI testing rates, to guide the improved design and delivery of prevention services in the future.

Labour has a long history of looking out for Aotearoa’s LGBTIQA+ and takatāpui communities, and we’re proud to continue that legacy tonight, and to celebrate love in all its forms. Tēnā tātou.

I call the Hon Mark Mitchell—a five-minute call.

Thank you, Madan Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand and take a short call on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.

Can I just acknowledge at the start Elizabeth Kerekere, who I sat with consistently through most of the submissions that we heard on the Justice Committee, along with other members of the committee as well. I think she made a very good point in her speech to the House when she said that most of the submitters that actually came and submitted to the committee, a lot of them shared very personal views in terms of what conversion meant to them and the impact that it had had on them. We had doctors and we had parents, caregivers, that fundamentally were making submissions around the fact that they didn’t want to see a chilling effect on the ability for parents to be able to have open conversations with their children, or to parent their children.

But the one thing that I found very interesting when we started questioning and got into a dialogue with them was that most of them were against conversion therapy. They’re against conversion therapy; they just wanted to make sure that they weren’t going to be criminalised, especially in the case of parents, when they were trying to parent their children. Nicole McKee made a very good speech outlining that very succinctly, along with Paul Goldsmith, and both of the parties are going to be putting up Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). So I hope the Minister will take into serious consideration with his advisers to make sure that we can absolutely give an unequivocal message to parents and caregivers, and, actually, medical practitioners, that the Government’s not going to be sitting in the room with them, with the fear of criminal charges and a term of imprisonment hanging over their heads, when they’re trying to parent or have discussions with their children.

That being said, when this bill was first brought to our caucus, my initial, gut reaction was absolute abhorrence at the thought of conversion therapy. I was actually stunned. I couldn’t believe that in modern New Zealand, a practice like that could actually be undertaken, and I still feel like that. But one thing that I learnt through the select committee process was that it’s a lot more complicated and more nuanced. A lot of the submissions that we heard from people that had been to subjected to conversion therapy, you could put on the more extreme end of the scale and you could put on the more mild end of the scale, but the one thing that was consistent was it had had a deeply negative impact on them.

I think, as lawmakers, when we come to this House, one of the things that we all hold fast to is the fact that we should pass legislation and do all that we can to protect vulnerable people in our country and in our communities, and that’s what this bill is trying to do. That is the spirit and intent of this bill, and therefore I do support the bill, but I support it on the premise that the Minister would, please, go away and give serious consideration to the SOPs that have been brought to this House by the National Party and by the ACT Party to give absolute surety and clarity in this legislation that a parent sitting in their lounge with their child, trying to parent them and have a discussion with them, is not going to be captured by the Government, that the Government’s not going to be there, it’s not going to create that chilling effect, and that those parents don’t have to worry about a sentence of imprisonment when they’re trying to engage in the parenting of their children. I do acknowledge that those conversations have to be done with respect and openness and love, and not a conversation of trying to change or disrupt or convert what a person fundamentally feels strongly about in terms of their identity.

So, like I said—me, personally—I will be supporting the bill in its passage through this House. I would ask the Minister to please have a look at, consider, and engage on the SOPs that have been brought to this House to ensure that we don’t pass legislation that inadvertently—because I don’t think the intent is to catch parents or caregivers or doctors or counsellors. But with the way the bill is written at the moment, there is a risk of that, and I’d ask that the Minister, like I said, consider carefully those SOPs. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I call Willow-Jean Prime—five minutes.

E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe, otirā tēnā tātou katoa, ā, tātou kua huihui mai i tēnei pō ki te kōrero e pā ana ki tēnei pire kei mua i a tātou i te pō nei.

[To the Speaker of the House, greetings, and also greetings to everyone, to all of us who have gathered here tonight to discuss the bill that lays before us tonight.]

Thank you for the opportunity to take a brief call. I’m standing because we do not have representation from the Māori Party tonight to speak on the second reading, so, taking that opportunity, I want to acknowledge the many whānau, many Māori, te hunga takatāpui, who I know who are part of our rainbow community—many who came and submitted to the Justice Committee—for having the courage to make a submission and to come before us to share your experiences and to talk to your support for the bill.

This has not been my experience, not even in my immediate whānau, and so it was a privilege to be a member of that select committee and to hear the harrowing stories that were shared with us. I found it particularly difficult to sit there amongst colleagues—we are the most rainbow Parliament in the world. To have some of my colleague sitting there hearing from submitters, hearing that there is something “wrong” with them, I found that really, really difficult, and if I was finding that difficult and hurtful, I can only imagine how hurtful that was for my colleagues, who this directly impacts. So I want to acknowledge all of those who sat through the many, many submissions, many of which were difficult for us at times, and to acknowledge your kaha to do that, as we tried to navigate that process and come up with the best piece of legislation that we could report back to the House, which we are debating tonight, and I believe we arrived in the right place with that.

As you heard in many of the speeches already this evening, you never quite know which issues are going to get the response that we do from the community. So as we opened up for submissions, I was watching social media, Instagram. People were encouraging people to make submissions—“There are forms that you can use. This is how you do the process.”—so I got a sense from that that, unlike lots of other legislation that goes through the House where people have the opportunity but they don’t take it, there were going to be quite a number. Well, when we got the final count in, it was 107,000—the largest number of submissions this Parliament has ever received. It shocked me that it was on an issue like this, when there are also so many other important issues that come before us.

There were 107,000 submissions, with 38,900 unique submissions—we’ve heard tonight that there was a lot of use of the template submissions—and more than 3,400 submitters requesting to make oral submissions. So that meant that for the Justice Committee—and I want to acknowledge our chair, Ginny Andersen—to just get through the process of determining which submissions we were going to hear from and how we were going to organise ourselves, I think we ended up in, was it, four subcommittees to be able to do that. We had 18 oral hearings to hear evidence from 800 oral submissions. It was a huge exercise that we undertook as the Justice Committee, and so I just really want to acknowledge all members.

I wasn’t there for the final deliberations on the report. I was on the Pae Ora Legislation Committee at the same time, but my notifications on my phone were pinging, and to have heard that we got unanimous support for the report back, I’m really proud of everybody who was on the committee that got it to the point that we’re at this evening.

You know, the statement that I really want to make is that after listening to all of those submissions for and against, but particularly against, there just can be no justification for trying to force someone to change their sexuality or their gender. This bill, the purpose of it is to try and prevent harm—and we heard so clearly that it causes harm—and to encourage, instead, safe and respectful conversations around sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. I don’t believe that this bill will remove all of the harm and all of the prejudice that our rainbow whānau suffer from, but it is another thing that we can do in our proud history of upholding rainbow rights, and I’m proud to be part of that this evening. Tēnā koutou katoa.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker, me ngā mihi mō te tau hou ki ngā mema Pāremata i runga i te Whare i tēnei pō, nō reira tēnā koutou.

[Greetings, Madam Speaker, and best wishes for the New Year to the members of Parliament in the House tonight, greetings to you all.]

Happy New Year to everyone, and it’s wonderful to be back in the House with my parliamentary colleagues. Kia tau te rangimārie.

[Let peace be upon us.]

But it’s a particular pleasure because this is the second reading, of course, to confirm this Government’s commitment at the general election to pass legislation that bans conversion practices.

Normally, February is when we celebrate Pride in Aotearoa, and while I’m sad for obvious reasons that the spread of Omicron has meant Pride festivities have had to be put on hold, I hope delivering this legislation on time is some compensation for our rainbow communities. This bill encourages safe and open discussions around sexuality and gender expression, and it will prevent the harm that conversion practices cause and provide an avenue for redress for those who have been impacted by them.

Conversion practices are based on the falsehood that a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression can and should be changed. They are discriminatory, harmful, and outdated, and they have no place in modern Aotearoa New Zealand. It also shifts the conversation about sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression this evening. It has become apparent through the consideration of this particular bill that we are no longer talking about whether we should support people to live authentically, but to a far more healthy and loving conversation about how we do that.

As I said in my first speech on this, this bill is about showing kotahitanga—unity—to our rainbow communities. Sexuality, gender identity, and gender expression are not political issues; they are issues of humanity, and it’s actually confusing to me why such basic human rights are even up for debate in this House, let alone why, sadly, some members this evening would choose to vote against them. As politicians, I believe that we have a duty of care to support our constituents, and this is one of those issues where how we vote will be remembered in years to come.

I joined the Justice Committee for a number of evidence sessions on the bill. There were almost 107,000 submissions on this legislation, close to 40,000 of which included original content. Eighteen separate oral hearings were held by many of us—days and days of listening to the people of Aotearoa. But I was impressed by the efforts that submitters in favour of the bill made to clearly set out the case for banning conversion practices—in particular, young New Zealanders, our rangatahi, who have a much more enlightened attitude to sexuality and gender identity and expression. They know who they are. They support one another to live authentically, as this legislation sets out to ensure, and this evening, I want to say to them that I hear you.

On the other side, I also want to acknowledge our religious groups that we heard from. I also want to acknowledge the progress that I saw in those submissions from religious groups—the progress that they have made on these issues. For these communities, sexuality and gender issues have been confronting. However, what I saw and what I heard from a number of faith-based communities, making the shifts that they need to in order to offer loving and affirming pastoral care to the young people that they care for—in that spirit, and, as a Catholic, I’d like to encourage us to navigate a pathway forward on these issues, too. I sometimes think about my own place as a gay man in this country within my faith community, and I believe too that, through kotahitanga, we can get there together and that my faith, my culture, and my sexuality can go hand in hand.

These are certainly issues that weighed on the committee’s mind, and it has proposed some sensible amendments to the purpose of the bill and the definitions of “serious harm” and “conversion practice”. The definition of “conversion practice” has been amended to cover practices, sustained efforts, and treatments, so that both one-off and cumulative practices are captured. Examples of what conversion practices look like have been added to for the avoidance of any doubt and the doubt that we’ve heard this evening. These include “using shame or coercion intending to give an individual an aversion to same-sex attractions or to encourage gender-conforming behaviour:”, “encouraging an individual to believe that their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression needs changing because it is a defect or a disorder:”, and “carrying out a prayer-based practice, a deliverance practice, or an exorcism intending to change or suppress an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

The bill defines a conversion practice as a “practice, sustained effort, or treatment” that is both directed towards a person because of their “sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression;” or “done with the intention of changing or suppressing … sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.” It explicitly does not capture the expression of a religious principle or belief that is not intended to change or suppress a person from being who they are, nor does it prevent parents from being part of conversations with medical practitioners about healthcare for their tamariki, their children. These will remain matters to be decided between health professionals, patients, and their families.

Under the bill, criminal and civil law will prohibit and deter the performance of conversion practices. Criminal offences are created where there is a heightened risk of harm or where it can be demonstrated someone has suffered serious harm as a result of conversion practices. A pathway for civil redress is created for the Human Rights Commission to take complaints about conversion practice, with escalation to the Human Rights Review Tribunal where a resolution cannot be arrived at.

This evening, I stand here as a proud Labour MP, and I’m proud because Labour Governments have consistently advanced the position of human rights for our rainbow communities. I remind everyone this evening that Labour has shifted homosexual law reform, property relations, civil unions, equal marriage, expunging historical homosexual convictions, and, only last year, we amended the births, deaths, and marriages legislation. The Labour Party—our Government—remains relentlessly proud for our rainbow communities, and this bill is a part of our active support for continuing this journey forward and, most of all, for our country to be the inclusive and accepting nation that we want it to be. I particularly want this evening to acknowledge Rainbow Labour and Young Labour for campaigning on conversion practices. That paved the way for this piece of Government legislation that we’re now considering.

Sadly, across the room, I’m disappointed in the decision of many of you this evening. It’s a great shame that you can’t decide on where you sit on a human rights issue that is detrimental to our rainbow communities, that you sit on the fence this evening, and that, most of all, you can’t take a unified position on a way forward. We are not a nut to crack, nor are we like a kidney transplant, as said in your speeches this evening.

Finally, and to conclude my speech this evening, I want to acknowledge OutLine, who do great work for our rainbow communities across the country. This legislation is also a tribute to them and groups like them, who have seen the harm of our rainbow communities when they are confronted by the long-term impacts that follow from conversion practices. For them, and for all of our rainbow communities, I commend this bill to the House. Tēnā tātou.

Matt Doocey—a five-minute call.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. To start off 2022, I think it’s a reminder of what an absolute privilege it is to be a member of Parliament and the House of Representatives, and I want to acknowledge everyone here tonight for this considered debate about a very important issue. My sense is both sides of the argument have a lot of commonalities, and it’s right that we debate this bill in the second reading and go on to the committee of the whole House to test the integrity of the drafting of the bill and the integrity of the legislation so that it will deliver what it says it will deliver.

I stand here tonight as the mental health and suicide prevention spokesperson for the National Party, and also the youth spokesperson and the inaugural Young Nats patron, a role I was excited to accept. I did say to the Young Nats, though, that if I accepted this inaugural role of being their patron, I wasn’t signing up to going out drinking with them—I’m way too old for that now. But these are a group of young people who are absolutely passionate about their country, as I’m sure all the other youth wings are as well.

I also stand here tonight as an individual who’s been on both sides of the therapeutic alliance: someone who’s been a consumer and someone who’s been a mental health practitioner. As we do say in mental health, it is a fine line between provider and consumer at times.

I also stand here as someone who’s a proud father of two young children, a boy and a girl—and I do look forward to celebrating their sexual orientation, their gender identity that they will decide—and as someone who grew up in a faith-based community and still goes to church.

Second readings are about the submissions, and I want to bring voice to one submission, and that is from the Young Nats. The Young Nats have been championing the banning of conversion practices since late 2019, and I want to acknowledge them for all their advocacy. It is difficult, I think, having different views, especially when those differing views are within your own caucus, but I think that it’s important that we do debate them. I want to acknowledge Stephanie-Anne Ross, the president of the New Zealand Young Nationals, and Madison Chamberlain, the national policy chair of the New Zealand Young Nationals. They were very clear in their submission on why they supported the banning of conversion practices, which is that “There is no evidence that conversion practices work.”, and I think that when you look at some of the institutions—the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, and the New Zealand Association of Counsellors—this practice does not work and actually causes harm.

That’s their second point: conversion practices do harm. We know our young people have high rates of mental distress at that part of the life course as they navigate their way through identity and development. Those in our rainbow community have higher rates of mental distress and suicide attempts, and, of course, those who have been through conversion therapy have even higher rates of suicide attempts and, unfortunately, even higher rates of suicide.

They said that “Engaging in conversion practices is often not a choice.”—there is a lot of coercion—and that the difference between parenting and subjecting a child to conversion practices is different. The Young Nats don’t want to see parents being prosecuted, but they clearly believe that there is a difference here—and I support them in that statement—and also that prohibition of these practices does not impact religious freedom: “There is a substantial difference between expressing a religious principle and subjecting an individual to conversion practices.” Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. May I say at the outset that I don’t think anyone—or, certainly, no one I’ve heard—disagrees with the intention behind this bill, the good meaning which is inherent in this bill. The conversion practice that would make someone question or have a lack of belief or courage in who they are is something that should not ever be encouraged or supported. In fact, we should ensure as best we can in our society that our young people are supported to be who they are and to make the decisions that they feel are best for them.

I can certainly say for me personally that I have numerous family members who are in the LGBTQIA+ community, and so it’s something I’m aware of at a personal level. Fortunately, my personal knowledge doesn’t extend to those members being subject to conversion practices, but it’s certainly something that I’ve heard about and, as I’ve heard from other people in this House, it would fill me with horror that that would happen.

However, there is an important point which has been raised this evening by the Hon Paul Goldsmith and Nicole McKee, and we just need some clarity from the Minister—I’m hoping it comes in the committee of the whole House stage—on the concerns raised by parents. There is a real concern that hasn’t fully been clarified, as I read this bill, about whether parents or caregivers could be caught by this bill if they, for example, withheld consent for medical intervention in relation to gender transition for what they consider their child’s best interests. As a father of three children, that’s not something I’ve had to personally deal with, but certainly I know that during that formative stage of a young person coming into their teenage years, there is a lot of uncertainty. Certainly, if a parent thought that it was in the best interest of their child not to have a medical intervention that could have longstanding consequences for them, that’s something that I would not want to see criminalised. I know there has been discussion that that is not in the intention of this bill, but it would be helpful if, for example, in the examples of conversion practices that was made clear to alleviate those concerns that a number of parents in our country have.

I note that we need to get the right balance between free speech, on one hand, and harms, on the other. I note that free speech has led our country to have some significant social change which has been of great benefit to our country—for example, back in 1986, the homosexual law reform, which led to huge change in our country, and has, obviously, led us on the journey which has led us to where we are today.

I just want to encourage the Government to make sure we get the right balance in this bill to carry on that good work to make sure people in our communities feel safe, and so that we have a good balance between the interests of those parents who are concerned that they will be captured for having well-meaning discussions with their children—particularly around medical intervention—and it is the intention of this bill to ensure that young people can feel safe to express themselves and to explore their identity and their sexuality. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Mā te whakatū ka mōhio, mā te mōhio ka mārama, mā te mārama ka mātau, mā te mātau ka ora—with discussion comes knowledge, with knowledge comes light and understanding, with light and understanding comes wisdom, with wisdom comes wellness. This was the beginning of a submission made that I was able to sit in on during the select committee stage.

They went on to say, “Some of us in the past have supported conversion therapy and now realise the damage it does. Some of us have never supported conversion therapy. Some of us have been hurt [some of us have close friends] who have been hurt [and pained] by conversion therapy. Our experiences and faith have led us collectively to believe that conversion therapy has no place in a society that values the humanity of all its people.”

Now, this submission was significant for me in many ways, but one is because this submission was from a group that I used to head up and lead. It was from a Christian organisation that I came out to a number of years ago, as leader. We were a conservative—as was said, it supported conversion practices in the past and had to deal with this. I’ve had to deal with this, they had to deal with this, and we came to a place where they talked about discussion, about knowledge, and about light and understanding which brings wisdom, and with that it brings wellness.

That is what this piece of legislation is about. It is around enabling discussion, and not around enabling parents to be thrown into prison because they want to lean in and love their children. They want to lean in and be good parents, and they want to lean in and be challenged and pushed, but they want to lean in and ensure what is right for their child.

Now, this organisation Incedo, as I said, was part of my journey. It still is a part of my journey—and it’s funny, because I missed the first half of speeches tonight. I want to say it was because I didn’t want to hear all the rhetoric and all the waffle and all the “We like you, but” and “We think you’re OK, but”. I was actually up in Bellamy’s, having my first anniversary dinner with my husband. It was good; I was behaved. But I just want to thank the Labour Party and I want to thank our Government for leaning in and ensuring that I can live my authentic self, and so that people who are listening tonight and people who are online listening to the select committee processes can live their authentic lives without fear of discrimination and without fear of being told something is wrong with them.

So often in this debate, when we talk about this issue, we forget the real lives, and as I was on the select committee listening, it hurt—thank you, Willow-Jean Prime, for your comments. It hurts to hear the rhetoric. It hurts, in 2021 and, now, in 2022, to still feel, even though I’m married and even though I can live my best life, that I still have this narrative of “Yeah, we support you, mostly, but what happens if one of our children”—we’re like you. Yeah, I’ve got friends, but what about my children, and we want to be in a place where the hard conversations are had. Yes, it’ll be hard—yes. But I just wish that my parents could have had those conversations with me. They never could.

I never came out to them either, because I was too scared because I had learnt—as I also listened to it in the select committee—“Love the sinner, hate the sin.” All I heard, as a 12-year-old, as a 15-year-old, as a 21-year-old, as a 30-year-old—and even now, as a 46-year-old, when you hear that “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”, all I hear is “Blah-blah-blah-blah”—hate—“Blah-blah-blah-blah”—hate—because for me, that is an essence of who I am. But I’m grateful that so many of our society support me, support our takatāpui whānau, and support our transgender and intersex communities.

As I listened and was hurt, I also listened and was brought to life as I heard Christian organisations, as I heard individuals, and as I heard community and youth organisations support this piece of legislation. Taranaki Youth Voice, based in Taranaki—I thought they made a really good point. Again, for parents, for those who are scared of “What might this mean for me?”, they talked about how conversion practices actually give a false hope to parents. They give a false hope to caregivers. They give a false hope to communities that maybe our rainbow alphabet soup of people can be fixed or can be changed—that false hope—and please, this isn’t just a phase or something; it is around the affirmation of who I am.

I also want to note the Salvation Army and their comments, and in the first reading, I mentioned them in terms of my history within the Salvation Army. But they mentioned that God is love, and one of the primary attributes of God is that if he’s love, there are no limits, and it’s for whosoever. They also talked in their submission about Jesus resisting the legalistic interpretation of the Scriptures. Summing it all up, it was around love God and love your neighbour—that’s it—and I think this piece of legislation is around that.

It’s how do we enable people to love people who are different to them and love people who aren’t like them—but also, again, for our whānau, for our parents, to find people to talk to. If you’re a good, conservative Christian out there and you’ve made a submission and you are nervous and fearful, then seek out people who maybe can alleviate your concern and your fear. You never know, it might just help you to lean in, in that light and that knowledge, which also brings that wellbeing.

Finally tonight, I want to thank Minister Kris Faafoi for taking this on. I’m sitting strategically in Marja Lubeck’s seat right now—or standing at her podium—to say thank you for the work that you’ve done to ensure this legislation has made it to second reading. As my colleague and others have said, to Rainbow Labour, to Young Labour, and to all those out there who took the time to put pen to paper, to put voice to Zoom, and to speak for me—and I’m aware that I’m a cis gay male; I’m one of the privileged ones. But they were speaking for our trans community, our intersex community, those who are fearful and are afraid to admit to even their closest friend or family member that they may feel like something is different—but you’re OK.

I started with a whakataukī, and I’m going to close with a prayer. Growing up in the Salvation Army, we had a lot to do with the world of alcohol and drugs, and Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps, and there’s the prayer that we would always use at the end of those services. I think it’s apt for tonight, and it says this: “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Kia ora.

The question is that the motion be agreed to. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye, to the contrary opinion will say No. the Ayes have it.

💬 Chris Penk: Party vote.

💬 Hon Member: A personal vote, don’t you mean?

💬 Chris Penk: A personal vote—I beg your pardon.

No, well, I—yeah, we will have a party vote. But I just want to tell members that the normal thing when you have a party vote is that you’ve got to have people saying it both ways, but—all right. At the moment, it’s sort of like 120 to none, but I’ll accept the fact that we’re in unusual circumstances, and we will have a party vote. The Clerk will conduct a party vote.