Verrall AyeshaHon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Associate Minister of Health): Conversion practices are harmful and degrading. That's why I'm proud to support this bill to prohibit conversion practices. Conversion practices are defined as practices intended to change a person's sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression." Conversion practices are wrong because there's no good reason to seek to change someone's sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression—and besides which you can't change these elements of a person's identity anyway.But conversion therapy can harm a person because how conversion therapy is actually undertaken sends a person a message: a message that they are not good enough that they ought to be ashamed. They are stigmatised. Efforts are made to erase them to rub them out to take away parts of their very essence. They are threatened with being cast out from their family or community. Worse it often happens to young people at a time when they should be nurtured by the adults around them and be allowed to develop a sense of belonging to their community. We are social beings and this type of psychological abuse is as harmful as physical abuse. So it is not surprising that conversion practices lead to worse mental health outcomes for those people who experience them later on in life. Tonight we have the opportunity to consign conversion practices to history where they belong with all their abuse and superstition.I want to acknowledge all of the work that has gone on to getting this bill to where it is today; to this moment. I want to acknowledge Marja Lubeck a true ally of the rainbow community for her work to develop this bill in the last term of Government and Minister Faafoi for his work as Minister of Justice bringing forward this bill as a Government bill. I also want to acknowledge the survivors of conversion therapy who submitted on the bill and their courage in doing so and also the many members of the rainbow community that campaigned for this; I wish you could be here with us now.In saying that I also want to say something I've thought of since I was a teenager coming out—or talking to my friends about coming out—and it's one of the things that I really admire about the rainbow community: so many of us have our own stories of stigma hate or rejection to share but in so many instances we respond with dignity love and pride. Pride is a catch-cry of the gay rights movements; it is the opposite of shame. The first pride marches were radical because people had been stigmatised all their life in the way that conversion practices stigmatise people. These people marched in the streets being open about who they were for the first time. Pride is inclusive and welcoming of all. It is a very affirming movement. I'm proud to be a member of Labour's rainbow caucus that has fought for this and other legislation to advance the human rights of the rainbow community.When we think about the arc of progress activists have made over the last several decades we could draw a line from the 35 years ago where homosexual law reform was passed in this House the Civil Unions Act passed 18 years ago the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act in 2013 and now this next step to end legal discrimination against members of the rainbow community.I think one of the things that makes this bill so important to me is now as I reflect on it as a mother and I think about all the little things you do to protect your child from abuse and bullying. It is so important that our rainbow children and young people know they are beautiful just the way they are and worthy of love and inclusion. It is with great pride that I commend this bill to the House."