Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:48): In rising to speak on this bill I wish to make a few introductory comments. This is not about electric shocks. This is about free individuals seeking advice on deeply personal matters that have irreversible and life-changing consequences. Individuals should be free to seek counselling, advice or care on any matter that they see fit without the interference of government. I believe in freedom of the individual and minimising government control over our lives. Governments need to get out of our bedrooms, churches and kindergartens, stop telling us what conversations we can and cannot have and what advice we can and cannot give to our children and allow individuals to live their lives free of political intrusion. No-one—no-one—condones harmful, barbaric conversion practices, and I am assured most, if not all, are already outlawed under the crimes of battery, assault and false imprisonment. If they are not, they should be, and they should be outlawed in distinct legislation, as my colleague Mr Ondarchie has just said.

I, like Mr Limbrick, am not particularly religious, but I totally support the right of any individual to practice or not practice and to participate in a religion of their choice and of their free will. However, I am a mother and most recently a grandmother, and I have also listened to medical experts, as we are implored to do on a daily basis these days, as well as educators. I did not enter this Parliament to turn parents, grandparents, educators, and medical and faith practitioners into criminals, and I take exception to anyone who seeks to suggest—like the Leader of the Greens, who is quoted as saying this—that opposition to this bill is ‘inherently homophobic and wrong’. Some of my very best friends come from the non-heterosexual community, and I love them dearly. It is insulting in the extreme to insinuate otherwise. I totally respect the views put by all members in this chamber, and unlike others I will not cast aspersions on any of their claims or arguments. That is not why I am here. I came into this place to fight the battle of ideas, not play the man. It is disingenuous, disrespectful and politically inadequate to personally attack those who do not subscribe to a particular viewpoint. Logic and reason should be the modus operandi here, not cheap labels.

It is also disingenuous to lump the issues of sexuality and gender transitioning together. The latter involves significant chemical and surgical procedures. Individuals going through transitioning deserve to be provided with honest and open advice, unadulterated by any threats of fines and jail time. With regard to Mr Meddick’s printed, reported and most personal arguments on this issue, I am here to say: I totally respect your support and no doubt wise counsel to your children, but I implore you to understand that all parents should have the right to counsel their children, especially those at an age before or during puberty, in the way that they see fit.

If adult individuals want to embark on medical intervention to change their sex, their gender, that is also their right, and they should be able to access every form and level of support, counselling and medical expert advice. This bill will clearly limit all levels of support and advice by only allowing them to hear one angle, so I cannot in good conscience vote for this bill in the form in which it has come before this Parliament. This bill casts its net widely and vaguely, and goes way beyond what is necessary to protect vulnerable individuals from harm.

It is not just about the restriction on freedom of thought, conscience and religious belief; it is also about the freedom that consenting adults should have to choose how to live their lives. In the name of outlawing harmful interventions, this government has produced a bill with an overreach of monumental proportions. I will of course wholeheartedly support the opposition’s amendment that requests further consultation with stakeholders, the referral of the bill to a parliamentary committee, enshrining parental rights over children and the suggestions proposed by the Australian Medical Association. The consultation conducted by the opposition has shown the deep flaws in this bill, and we have proposed a number of solutions which retain the stated purpose of the bill but cut out the assault on personal and religious liberty.

I would like to extend my gratitude to the many constituents, the thousands who have contacted me about this legislation—parents, doctors, lawyers and members of the LGBT community included—who have engaged incredibly closely with the text and the arguments and raised a huge variety of important points. It is on their behalf that, should the amendments be defeated, I will be forced to vote against this frighteningly flawed legislation. I would also like to flag the complete disdain with which the Attorney-General treated staff for requesting very legitimate information, ignoring the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulation Committee’s correspondence of seven weeks ago until I raised it in the chamber this week. Suddenly we have an answer; whether it is adequate is debatable.

From the outset I would like to cast aside the negative and unhelpful assertions propagated by the proponents of this bill. My opposition to this legislation does not originate from an ill-conceived belief that members of the LGBT community are broken, and such an accusation is merely politicking with an extremely contentious issue. Nor does my opposition somehow render me a supporter of barbaric, cruel practices that cause extreme harm to individuals—which could not be further from the truth—particularly given that, as argued by the LGB Alliance Australia, there is little evidence of any harmful, coercive practices as described by the Human Rights Law Centre, such as involving sleep deprivation, use of restraints, electrodes and ice bars and admissions to mental institutions, occurring in Victoria today. The most extreme forms of conversion practice, which the government and their allies will dishonestly point to, are rightly already illegal in Australia given that they constitute other criminal offences. I oppose this legislation because rather than outlawing these specific practices the Labor government’s real intent is much wider and involves controlling the thoughts and actions of individuals in a way which I can only describe as sinister and terrifying.

My first reservation regarding this legislation pertains to the right of individuals to seek psychiatric help without medical professionals being afraid of directions based on ideology and significant fines or even jail. The consequences of gender transitions are irreversible and life changing, and the individuals who undergo them are some of the most vulnerable people in society. According to the National LGBTI Health Alliance, nearly 80 per cent of transgender people aged between 14 and 25 in Australia have self-harmed in their lifetime and 48 per cent have attempted suicide. These are frightening statistics, and I know Ms Shing referred to these terrible circumstances in her deeply heartfelt speech. I reject the notion that criminalising discussions about individuals’ gender dysphoria will reverse these statistics. As the chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ Victorian branch, Dr Kerryn Rubin, told the Age this week, these people ‘need more help not less’. Why are we suggesting that they should be in any way restricted in the advice and support they can get? This legislation will severely impact the way that psychiatrists interact with their patients who are experiencing gender dysphoria, unable to explore the reasons why they feel a particular way and assess the extremity of their situation, out of fear of radical punitive measures. It is extraordinary that a government that has constantly urged everyone to listen to the health experts now chooses to ignore them when it does not suit its ideological agenda.

My next significant concern about this legislation, which the opposition amendment seeks to rectify, is regarding parental rights. As others have already raised in this chamber, many who are familiar with the legal developments of transgender issues will be aware of the UK High Court case regarding Keira Bell. Keira was prescribed puberty blockers, which have potentially irreversible effects on fertility, sexual function, bone density and development, after just three appointments with a youth gender clinic. The UK High Court, quite rightly in my view, found that children are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to undergo treatment with puberty-blocking drugs. Children cannot get a tattoo, drink alcohol, drive unsupervised, vote or smoke, yet somehow they can consent to life-altering medical practices. This legislation would prevent parents from ensuring that their children’s desire to change their gender is founded in genuine dysphoria and not in any other underlying anxiety or psychological issues. A 2008 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that:

Most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty.

Proponents of this legislation cannot on the one hand recognise the vulnerability and harrowing mental health statistics of transgender Australians and simultaneously advocate that no child can receive any advice that is contrary to immediate transitioning, despite the high rates of gender dysphoria not persisting post puberty.

Lastly, there are significant issues in this legislation regarding individual freedom, which I hold as one of the most fundamental political ideals. The government should have no right to stand in the way of an individual who under no duress decides to seek advice on how to deal with personal issues in a particular way. In particular, it is outrageous that prayer for individuals experiencing these feelings could be criminalised. And Victorians share this outrage, with 75 per cent of Victorians over the age of 18 believing that saying a prayer for a person struggling with gender identity should not be a criminal offence, according to polling by the Menzies Research Centre.

To conclude, I would like to urge the crossbench to vote in favour of the opposition’s amendments. The bill in its current form has potentially disastrous consequences, maybe unintended, for many Victorians, and I cannot in good conscience vote in favour of it in its present form. If the government is truly committed to its proclaimed aim of outlawing barbaric conversion practices and not more broadly outlawing certain advice provided by parents, psychiatrists, counsellors, educators or religious practitioners, then they too should vote for the opposition’s amendments. I oppose this legislation on behalf of the thousands of Victorians who have written to me expressing their concerns and the many families who may be endangered by it.

Sitting suspended 4.03 pm until 4.17 pm.