The Prime Minister wants to see the first step to banning conversion therapy in Parliament this year.
Labour promised at the last election to ban conversion therapy, in which a person attempts to change a person's sexual orientation.
“We’re working on the policy now,” Jacinda Ardern said today in Whangarei. “We’ll be going out and consulting with communities deeply affected by this in the coming months.
“We’ve committed to reform, but I want to get it right.”
Calls to ban sexual orientation and gender conversion therapy came in 2018 after TVNZ1's Sunday investigated therapy offering to "cure" people. A petition was delivered to Parliament in August, 2018 with about 20,000 signatures urging Parliamentarians to ban conversion therapy.
National’s justice spokesperson Simon Bridges this morning told Three that despite viewing conversion therapy as wrong, he had concerns around freedom of speech.
Ardern denied it would impinge on free speech.
“I absolutely do not. We know that conversion therapy has a harmful impact on our rainbow community. We know we have high rates of suicide and self-harm in that community. I consider that we have an obligation to fix this issue and reduce harm.”
National has yet to form a position on the issue, but its youth wing, the Young Nats, have publicly come out in support of banning conversion therapy.
Andrew Bayly, National’s third ranked MP, told 1 NEWS in 2019 he did not agree that conversion therapy “should take place at all”.
Liam Kernaghan, who ran for National’s seat in Taieri in 2020, wrote on Twitter that “stopping someone from using archaic and dangerous ‘science’ to try and change who I am and who I love is not a freedom of speech issue”.
He said conversion therapy was “a practice that involves preying on vulnerable young people who are often forced into subjection”.
“It is not OK.”
When Labour announced last year it would ban conversion therapy if re-elected, the Green Party, which had been advocating for ending conversion therapy, welcomed Labour’s commitment.
As to how Labour would ban conversion therapy, Labour's policy at the time was to create new criminal offences, punishable by "financial fine and/or imprisonment depending in severity, for people, entities or organisations".
An ACT spokesperson said last year they do not "believe conversion therapy should be practiced", but added they did not believe in a ban.
This week in Australia, the Victorian Government moved to outlaw practices that seek to change or suppress a person's sexual orientation or gender identity.
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