Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. The ACT Party understands how sensitive discussions are around people's identity and we support the bill at this stage with some reservations. Thank you Minister Faafoi for acknowledging the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 120 submitted by ACT MP Nicole McKee. In fact we have two. One SOP seeks to modify the bill to require a review of how the Act operates. Because of the very sensitive subjects that the bill deals with the way that people observe religious practices the way that family members communicate with each other—particularly dealing with young people at a time where they are vulnerable and need support—that is why the ACT Party believes it's important to have a review of the way the Act operates and anything that Parliament can learn from how the Act has operated over a five-year period. It's true that there were many submissions that were seeking actually to have a lot more strict interpretation and definitions included in the bill as the Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere alluded to before and so there may well be much to learn once the bill is put into place as an Act of Parliament and then implemented. So that is why the ACT Party is seeking a formal review of the operation of the Act after five years to consider whether any amendments to this Act are required or desirable to report the review findings on the operation of this Act to the Minister and as soon as practical that the Minister has that report after a five-year period of operation to present a copy of that report to this House of Representatives and then discuss that with elected members and then talk about how the bill might be improved.The ACT Party believes it's important that conversion practices which are harmful are outlawed and that they do not continue because people have suffered real harm. This is new territory for New Zealand lawmakers and for those who will be asked to interpret the law and then enforce the law but also it's new territory for families for schools for counsellors working with young people for their GPs and for religious communities. That is why ACT believes that it is absolutely vital that there is a review of the operation of the Act included.I know the Minister has in his opening remarks acknowledged this Supplementary Order Paper and said that the Government declines to take it up. However I would ask the Minister to reconsider. There is time there is still time for changes and if the Minister were to seek advice from officials as to what the scope of a review and the implications and potentially the potential costs and benefits are I am confident—the ACT Party is confident—that a review clause would be entirely appropriate and would give a great deal of confidence particularly to those parents caregivers school counsellors people in religious communities GPs and all of those who support young people as they go through that wonderful journey of learning about their own identity and finding out their own purpose in life. We should make sure that any laws that affect them are very carefully crafted particularly ones where there is such a great deal of emotional sensitivity around them.Young people at the moment are having a real struggle particularly those of school age and moving from school into work and study because there is so much pressure on them whether it's from social media or having to succeed at school. With the repeated COVID lockdowns and other controls that have forced them to in many cases lose a lot of the social cohesion that they get from spending time together at school and from interacting and testing out their ideas on each other which is one of the wonderful things about being a young person about being a teenager or a tweeny"—that you go to school and you talk about the things that you've seen or read or that you've heard friends and family members talking about and you test your ideas out on other young people.Sometimes it turns out that when you go home and you talk to mum and dad about those things they say "Oh that's a load of rubbish!" or sometimes they might say "Your friend's really on to something. You should find more friends like that one. They're really sensible people." I think a lot of parents are concerned that the conversations that they want to have with their children in a family home in a loving home will be somehow chilled or stymied by a nagging concern whether it's justified or not that this bill would stop them having those really important conversations with young people in their lives: family members workmates and so on.Young people who go out to work outside of the family home and outside of what can often be a rather cloistered school environment if they're just going from home to school every day—going out into the workplace. That's where I first met people who I thought "Well crikey these are really different from the people in my family and my friend group. What on earth makes them tick?" and that's when my eyes where opened to all the different types of characters and identities and the way people think and also how they like to express themselves and their love for others. In many ways that's what this Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill is attempting to do. It's attempting to protect particularly those young and vulnerable people who want to express their identity and their love for others and we should protect that and we should protect them from being subjected to abuse and harm. But we should also protect the rights of parents and families and counsellors to engage in respectful discussions about really important matters that may well affect somebody's life if not permanently then in life-changing ways that cannot always be reversed.That is why ACT has submitted another Supplementary Order Paper: Supplementary Order Paper 121. This is another amendment proposed by ACT MP Nicole McKee that any conversation between a child and their parent or legal guardian should be excluded from those definitions which would somehow criminalise or make those conversations about the young person's identity potentially a criminal offence.The ACT Party believes it's very very important to protect the rights of those people who are vulnerable who want to express their identity and who feel that if they do that they will suffer harm in some way whether it's psychological harm or physical harm—hopefully not although we have heard some awful testimony about that. But the conversations between a child and their parent or legal guardian we believe should be protected and we believe that everyday New Zealanders would agree with the ACT Party that that's a very important delineation between the purpose of the bill and protecting those very special relationships in the family home.The ACT Party asks the Minister and those who support the bill and will vote for it to please consider incorporating the amendment proposed by Nicole McKee which protects any conversations between a child and their parent or legal guardian from being mistakenly incorporated into the definition of what might be harm. Thank you Minister. Thank you Madam Chair."