Health Minister Bridget Archer says she is likely to support the Greens’ bill to ban conversion practices, becoming the first Liberal MP to publicly back the legislation.
Conversion practices are attempts to change, suppress or eradicate a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. They remain legal in Tasmania but have been banned in Victoria, the ACT, NSW, Queensland and South Australia.
Archer said she had a long-standing public commitment to protecting LGBTIQ communities and had long held the view that “we should be doing everything we can to end harmful conversion practices.”
She thanked Premier Jeremy Rockliff for allowing Liberal MPs a conscience vote, saying it “shows the strength of our party” on an issue with a range of views.
Asked about being the only Liberal so far to say they would support the bill, Archer said amendments were likely.
“I think that makes it difficult for people to say unequivocally one way or another,” she said.
“That’s the job of the parliament.”
Asked whether Liberal colleagues posting about the bill on social media had conducted themselves respectfully, Archer said “people must be responsible for their own conduct and accountable for their own conduct.”
Deputy Premier Guy Barnett, Police Minister Felix Ellis and Liberal backbencher Michael Ferguson have said they will vote against the bill.
Barnett has called it “fundamentally flawed,” while Ferguson is sponsoring a parliamentary e-petition urging MPs to reject it.
Rockliff has said he supports a ban but there is “overreach” and “rough edges” in the bill.
Labor leader Josh Willie, who said he had met with victim-survivors, accused government ministers of “putting misinformation out into the public domain on their social media accounts.”
“I think there’s been misrepresentation of the bill,” he said.
“I think there’s been a fear campaign being run, It’s really important that we go back to the intent of this bill, which is to ban harmful practices that have long-lasting trauma on people.”
Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said a “false and misguided scare campaign” had been running for months and the bill would not stop parents talking to their children about sexuality or gender or people expressing their faith.
“This bill goes nowhere into the health practitioner space,” she said.
Woodruff said the Greens were open to amendments “that don’t change the intention and the purpose of the legislation.”
The Greens tabled the bill on September 10. It would create a conversion practices commissioner and criminal offences that apply only where a conversion practice causes injury and the person was negligent as to whether injury would be caused.
The Greens say it exempts health services that meet professional standards, statements of religious teaching and parents discussing sexuality and gender with their children.
A 2022 Tasmanian Law Reform Institute report found conversion practices were still occurring in Tasmania and recommended a ban.
Labor and several crossbenchers have indicated support, meaning the bill could pass without government backing.
The bill is expected to be debated in the House of Assembly this week.
