SpeechVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): 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 107000. 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 38900 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."