Faafoi KrisCONVERSION PRACTICES PROHIBITION LEGISLATION BILLFirst ReadingHon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): I present a legislative statement on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill.SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website. I will inform the House that no member has approached me indicating their preference for a personal vote.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Kia orana Mr Speaker. I move That the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.It is with great pride that I stand here to start the debate on the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill. It gives effect to a Labour Party manifesto commitment at the last election and I want to begin by acknowledging the LGBTQI+ community our own rainbow caucus rainbow members of this Parliament Rainbow Labour and also our young Labour rainbow members who took a petition to Parliament I believe in 2018Chlöe Swarbrick: Young Greens.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: —as well as the Young Greens who were there also presenting that petition. I was getting there!If you look at clause 3 of the bill: The purpose of this Act is to—(a) prevent harm caused by conversion practices; and (b) [to] promote respectful and open discussions regarding sexuality and gender." It goes to a very fundamental right that we believe all New Zealanders have: to decide who they are or to explore who they are. It's been very clear over a long period of time that the gay community and those who are exploring their gender identity have suffered extreme harm at attempts to try and change their sexuality or their gender identity. That harm has manifested itself in mental health issues; relationship issues; in some cases long-term mental health issues; and in some unfortunate cases suicide attempts and suicide itself.We want to make a very firm statement that conversion practices do not work. They cause harm for people who are going through the process of being who they are and that is why this piece of legislation is before this House. The kinds of conversion practices that we've seen historically and we've heard from engagement with the community have been at the extreme end the likes of electroconvulsive therapy. Now they more commonly include the likes of practices claiming to be counselling or talk therapy and some faith-based practices involving prayer fasting and exorcism.I know there will be a debate around the issues around religious groups in this first reading. I want to acknowledge the church leaders that we met last week via Zoom who we gave an indication of the direction of this bill. They said to us that by and large they support the banning of conversion therapies but had some questions about the religious freedoms that they enjoy. And I hope that since the time that we have spoken to them and them seeing the bill they have seen that we have put in protections for the expression of their religious principles and beliefs and that is another important protection of right that we want to make sure that is in this bill.I think everyone in this House has a story about someone that they know or love who has had a difficult time in coming out. I certainly have one of those and my friend—who I'm not going to go into too much detail about—came out quite late in his life and I cannot imagine some of the difficulties that people like him and others have gone through to be who they are. And this is why I think this is such an important piece of legislation for the LGBTIQ community to make sure that they have that right protected and that again we prevent the harm that is caused in those communities. Can I also acknowledge my colleague Marja Lubeck for the work that she has done in the previous Parliament to put forward a member's bill on this issue. I'm sure she's very pleased that we have got this to this stage to have this first reading. I know she will talk about a lady called Amanda Ashley who was one of the champions of making sure that this kind of legislation came through this House.In terms of a conversion practice itself as it is defined in the bill it has to be targeted at someone because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity or gender expression and it has to have the intent of changing or suppressing that gender identity or sexual orientation. Again and depending on the circumstances it has to be shown that there is harm or serious harm and then the police do what they normally do and gather an evidentiary base to make sure that they may have a case against a person that may undertake a conversion practice. Then there is another protection in this bill—any matter to go to court is with the consent of the Attorney-General for a court case to proceed. We have deliberately designed this piece of legislation to make sure that it is only the serious cases that will ever make their way to a court room. There are also civil protections civil provisions within this bill to make sure that any issues that are not considered serious or criminal will be taken through the Human Rights Commission and there are remedies there as well.Again I would stress the purpose of this bill: it is to prevent harm and to make sure we are encouraging those respectful and open discussions about people's sexual orientation and their gender identity. At the announcement last week we also said that we will take the select committee very seriously. We will watch those submissions we will watch the submissions and the tone of the submissions that are made by other political parties and we will make this bill better if we think we can but the fundamental purpose of this bill is to make sure we are preventing harm in our community when people are having their fundamental right of being who they are or exploring who they are impacted. Again the mental health impacts long-lasting mental health impacts have for far too long plagued our rainbow community. It is well time that these conversion practices were banned."