A youth politician overseeing a 20,000 strong petition to ban gay conversion therapy in New Zealand says he's "pretty optimistic" the weight of political pressure will bring about a law change swiftly.
Young Greens co-convener Max Tweedie helped instigate the petition which will be presented to Government Ministers and MPs on the steps of Parliament today.
He says the practice of gay conversion therapy has a well documented history of causing harm.
"The premise of conversion therapy rests on the idea that having a diverse sexual orientation or gender identity is wrong and fundamentally we know that this practice is harmful," Mr Tweedie said.
"We know that places like the American Psychological Association and even the councils association here in New Zealand say it causes widespread harm - that we see issues like depression, anxiety, and in worst cases suicide because of this issue.
"Just having this as an option for people to go through we just think is absolutely unacceptable."
Mr Tweedie says the petition first came about after a TVNZ Sunday piece exposed how gay conversion therapy was still being practiced today in New Zealand.
Three gay men spoke about the conversion therapy they’ve been through, and Sunday goes undercover to find people offering it.
"We were quite shocked at that, and we didn't really know it was happening here. We knew it was happening overseas. So we decided it was something that was unacceptable in this country in 2018," he said.
Mr Tweedie said he wasn't "100 per cent sure" how widespread the therapy was in New Zealand, but that it is definitely available to people who seek it out, and often young people are coerced into it via faith based groups.
Support from both the Labour Party and the Green Party during the petition process meant a successful law change to ban the therapy will be achieved, Mt Tweedie believed.
After the 20,000 strong petition is presented to an MP today, the document will be taken to a Government select committee.
The committee will then asses how a ban would work, and report back to Parliament.
Mr Tweedie said he was hopeful there won't be legislative hurdles to getting the ban put in place.
"We think it's a pretty simple practice, its quite easily defined," he said.
"We hope it's going to be a pretty easy one and there won't be any barriers to doing it."
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