In the leadup to the March election the Minns Government promised to carve out protections in the conversion practices legislation to ensure the freedom of religious expression. Now a media article published by the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that the Government has gone weak on these promises. I urge you please take responsibility for your pre-election promise and integrate specific protections for parents, pastors, and medical professionals.

Parents have an important responsibility to protect and ensure the safe upbringing of their children. With this responsibility comes the right to freely discuss with their children a Biblical ethic on sex and sexual conduct. A right supposedly protected under the ICCPR. However, the new Minns Government’s proposed ban on so-called conversion practices would threaten this fundamental parental right. I urge the Government to exclude parents from the scope of the legislation or provide specific protections for parents.

I am deeply concerned about the new Minns Government’s proposed legislation to ban so-called conversion practices. If introduced and passed the bill would retract a parent's right to explain to their child that their sex is biologically fixed and cannot be altered. This scientific and Biblical view has thousands of years of precedence, and the Government seeks to silence it in weeks. I urge the Government not to impose this ideology on parents, our pastors, and medical professionals. There needs to be specific protections for these groups.

It is concerning that the Minns Government is rushing through the process of consultation regarding their new ‘Conversion Practices’ legislation with submissions closing next Friday. The NSW Government needs to consult more voices on this proposed legislation especially to hear the voices of parents of children who have been devastated after undergoing 'affirmation' therapy. I am calling on the Minns Government to hear these voices and include an exclusion or specific protections for parents to ensure harm does not befall any more of our nation’s children.

The new Minns Government's consultation paper on so-called conversion practices legislation facilitates the affirmation of gender incongruence. This is deeply concerning when considering that multiple countries are now boycotting affirmation therapy due to the perpetuation of harm. I question whether the Government is legitimately concerned about the health and welfare of Australians or are they simply bending to another ideological agenda. Please, I urge the new Minns Government not to allow harm to come to our children and provide specific protections for parents to share a Biblical position on sex and sexual conduct.

After being made aware of a new consultation paper on banning ‘so-called’ conversion practices I feel convicted to stand for parents in NSW. This legislation actively promotes “gender exploration, transition and expression” despite known harmful and irreversible effects. If the Government proceeds with this legislation it is irrefutably promoting its own ideological conversion practices. Parents will not stand to be told how we must teach our children. We call on the Government to incorporate an exclusion or specific protections for parents embedded in this legislation.