Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Sorry to prolong the debate! Happy to speak on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. As has been well-traversed the National Party has treated this as a conscience vote. I've recently become the justice spokesperson and so have taken a particular interest in this as an issue affecting the laws of the land. And I want to say at the outset I will be supporting this bill personally. I don't support conversion practices or the attempt to change the sexuality of people particularly in any coercive way and there's no question that there's been much damage done to many people over the years through such attempts. Some of them are driven by hate and dogma as the previous Minister talked about; some of them no doubt with good intentions badly carried out. So I'm very pleased and prepared to support this.What we have raised through the process are some concerns about the way this particular bill has been drafted and serious issues around the extent of what is captured by a conversion practice". And that is of course exactly what we should be doing here in this House as legislators: looking at what the bill in front of us actually says because what we're dealing with in Parliament is not what our intentions are—that we want to just stop a particular practice—it's what the piece of legislation in front of us actually achieves. So my three concerns that I wanted to see rectified were—just being absolutely clear—around free expression around making sure that the legislation doesn't in any way inhibit the proper discussions that people need to have before making life-changing decisions particularly in the context of medical interventions around gender identity which has been included in the broad scope of the bill and finally that parents who don't agree with or aren't prepared to give permission to significant medical interventions wouldn't be captured.And I introduced three Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in the House to clarify that. The Minister has given assurances that each of those areas won't be covered by the legislation: i.e. that any free opinion or just a statement of opinions is not captured by the bill. The concern was of course with a broader definition of conversion practice to be a "practice sustained effort or treatment" that that would be directed towards an individual because of their gender identity with the intention of changing or suppressing an individual's sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression. That's quite broad and so people will naturally ask the question "Well what does that mean? What is captured by a 'sustained effort' to suppress somebody's gender identity?" If you're confronted with a young teenager a 13- or 14-year-old asserting that they are a different gender and wanting to make very very significant decisions. So we've heard from the Minister "No no. Nothing in this bill will in any way inhibit frank discussions by medical practitioners prior to any significant decisions." which is wholly appropriate and should be quite clear. That basic question that should always be asked before any significant medical interventions is "Do you really want to do this?" And you need to be able to have that in a frank and open way without feeling inhibited.And thirdly around parents again not being criminalised if they were to not give consent to those medical interventions which I think people would expect to be clear-cut. So notwithstanding that those SOPs weren't supported I did think it was still a useful exercise in getting it quite clear in the Hansard and in the parliamentary debates which will have an impact and influence on how this piece of legislation is interpreted when it does indeed come to the courts. I do think that that was an important set of assurances to have from the Minister.So my hope now is that this bill will be one that does provide future generations of young people from all sorts of backgrounds to have that level of confidence that they won't be exposed to some of the terrible practices that some of the earlier members of the community have faced. And with that I want to conclude my speech. Thank you very much."