Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): 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 $300000 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.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): I call the Hon Mark Mitchell—a five-minute call.