Tasmania’s parliament is debating a Greens bill this week to ban conversion practices. The key issue is whether the law is clear enough to prevent coercion and abuse without inadvertently including ordinary conversations, prayer, or parental guidance. The Greens tabled the Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026on 10 September, and it has passed its first reading but not its second.
Liberal MPs have been given a conscience vote. Ministers Guy Barnett, Felix Ellis and Gavin Pearce, along with Eric Abetz and Michael Ferguson, have said they will vote against it. Premier Jeremy Rockliff supports a ban in principle but has said the bill overreaches and has rough edges, and he has signalled openness to amendments.
The vote is close. The Greens hold four votes and Labor ten; 18 are needed to pass the bill. Independent Kristie Johnston has confirmed her support, so the outcome will likely depend on individual Liberal and crossbench MPs. Barnett has called for a further inquiry before the bill proceeds.
What the bill does
The bill defines a conversion practice as conduct directed at a specific person with the intention of changing, suppressing or eradicating their sexual orientation or gender identity. The person’s consent does not affect whether the conduct counts.
It creates a mix of civil and criminal measures:
- A conversion practices commissioner, a role held by the existing anti-discrimination commissioner.
- Criminal liability for intentionally carrying out a conversion practice that harms the victim, with serious cases heard by the Supreme Court of Tasmania.
- Separate offences for taking someone out of Tasmania for conversion practices, and for advertising conversion practices.
The bill lists activities that do not constitute conversion practices, including public debate; expressions of belief, such as prayer; parents discussing sexuality, gender, or religion with their children; and health services a practitioner provides in good faith, in accordance with legal, professional, and ethical requirements.
Those opposing the bill argue it does not adequately separate harmful conversion practices from ordinary religious practice, parental guidance, or counselling and support that adults seek freely. They note the definition disregards consent and does not itself require coercion or harm, although the criminal offences do require injury. The exclusions for religion, parents and supportive care offer protection, but critics say their practical limits are unclear.
A legal analysis of the bill, echoed in commentary by Emeritus Professor Patrick Parkinson in Australian Presbyterian, raises seven concerns.
- The protections for faith and family are narrower than they sound. The bill protects “expressions of belief” and parental “discussion”, but it does not clearly protect requested spiritual guidance, the practical application of religious teaching, or parental decision-making. Many protections apply only to conduct that does not, “of itself”, amount to a conversion practice, leaving many conversations or prayers uncertain. A fact-check published by the National Secular Lobby, which backs the bill, concedes that a prayer or conversation aimed at an individual as part of a sustained effort to change who they are could fall within it.
- The criminal threshold is low, and the penalty is severe. Sections 12 and 14 reportedly require injury, which can include temporary harm to mental health, plus negligence about that injury. Critics note that NSW and South Australia require serious or substantial harm, and that the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute recommended serious harm with knowledge or recklessness. The bill instead exposes defendants to the Criminal Code’s general maximum of 21 years’ imprisonment. Under section 5(2), it also does not matter if the person acted on a mistaken assumption about the other person’s orientation or identity.
- The broad definition is carried into child-safety law. Conversion practices directed at children would become reportable conduct and feed into institutional child-abuse provisions, including the Criminal Code’s disclosure duty and the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act. Critics say this applies without the injury needed for a criminal offence, so conduct within the broad section 5 definition could trigger reporting, investigation and organisational liability even where no harm has been established.
- Churches, schools and other organisations carry heavy duties. Section 11 requires that a person take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate conversion practices, which Parkinson reads as a positive obligation rather than a prohibition. Employers and principals can be treated as having committed offences by employees, contractors and volunteers, and can be prosecuted even if the individual is not, with a due-diligence defence. Civil attribution rules and child-abuse duties add further overlapping liability.
- The bill creates large exposure to claims and legal costs. It removes limitation barriers for qualifying historical childhood personal-injury claims, including claims already time-barred, and Parkinson describes this as retrospective. The same alleged conduct could trigger Tribunal compensation proceedings, civil claims, criminal proceedings, child-safety investigations and regulatory enforcement at once.
- The Commissioner is given extensive coercive powers. Anyone can make a report, even with no involvement. The Commissioner can open investigations on their own initiative, compel documents and answers, issue compliance notices, accept enforceable undertakings and publish findings. The privilege against self-incrimination is removed, with direct-use immunity but no express derivative-use immunity.
- Substantive changes to other laws are labelled consequential. These include a new definition of sexual orientation throughout the Anti-Discrimination Act 1998 and a broader non-discrimination principle under the Health Complaints Act 1995. Their effects extend well beyond conversion practices and should be scrutinised separately.
Guy Barnett has called the bill fundamentally flawed and wants an inquiry, and Felix Ellis warns that clinicians and parents who take a cautious approach could be exposed. Supporters of the bill argue that the exceptions are explicit, that similar laws interstate have not led to prosecutions for conversations or prayer, and that a criminal offence still requires proven injury and fault. That is why precision matters, and why critics are calling for stronger, plainer safeguards.
New Zealand has been here before
In 2021 and 2022, critics warned that New Zealand’s Conversion Practices Bill would chill free expression on gender, including in a legal opinion we issued. Despite these concerns, the law passed with near-unanimous support after a select committee received more than 100,000 submissions.
Four years later, the debate continues. In October, NZ First leader Winston Peters said his party would have challenged the law had it been in Parliament when it passed, while Christopher Luxon ruled out overturning it.
Broad support for ending abuse did not resolve the complex drafting issues in New Zealand, and these questions remain. Tasmanians have the opportunity to address them now, before the offences take effect.
When a law is vague, the people left guessing are not politicians or advocates. These include:
- Parents, who want to guide their children through some of the hardest years of their lives and shouldn’t have to wonder whether a conversation at the kitchen table could one day be reported.
- Pastors and churches, who offer prayer, teaching and pastoral care and who deserve a clear line between a sermon and a prosecution.
- Clinicians and counsellors, trusted to be honest, exploratory, and cautious with a distressed young person, may think twice if the law is unclear.
A better bill would target coercion, deception, threats and abuse, not conversations. It would give consent a meaningful role, allowing competent adults to seek the support they choose while protecting vulnerable people. It would more clearly exclude parents, clergy and clinicians acting in good faith, require a proper committee inquiry, and consider the amendments the Premier has said he is open to.
This is not a minor bill. It would create criminal offences with a maximum penalty of 21 years, broaden child-safety law, impose positive duties on churches and schools, expose organisations to claims long after the limitation period, and grant a commissioner the power to compel documents and answers. Regardless of its aims, the law’s scope should be understood before it is passed.
Most people want to end coercion and abuse, which is precisely why careful drafting matters. A law that is too broad is hard to apply and hard to live under even for the people it is meant to protect and for everyone else.
Tasmania’s MPs are voting on this bill this week. Questions about definitions, thresholds, duties, and powers are on the public record, and they deserve answers there as well. A good law protects people from abuse and safeguards everyone’s freedom to speak, pray and parent. MPs, and the public watching them, should ask whether this one does both before the vote.
