Tasmania's Liberals Will Get a Conscience Vote on the Greens' Conversion Practices Ban

Tasmania’s Liberal government won’t whip its MPs against a ban on conversion practices. Premier Jeremy Rockliff confirmed after a party-room meeting that Liberal members will get a conscience vote on the Tasmanian Greens’ bill, ABC News reported on September 25. Labor and several crossbenchers already support the bill.

That combination could make Tasmania, the last Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise homosexuality, one of the next to outlaw attempts to “cure” LGBTIQA+ people.

What the bill does

The Greens introduced their draft bill in June. According to the ABC’s earlier reporting, it defines conversion practices as conduct aimed at “changing, suppressing or eradicating the sexual orientation or gender identity” of a person. It also includes carve-outs for religious expression and for parents talking with their children.

Greens deputy leader Vica Bayley made the case in plain terms: “The Greens’ bill seeks to end conversion practices. These harmful and sometimes deadly practices are still occurring in Tasmania.” Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff has argued the bill “isn’t radical — it’s directly in line with what other states have already legislated.”

The evidence has been there for years. In 2022, the Tasmania Law Reform Institute found that conversion practices were causing “severe harm” and were still going on in the state, and it recommended a ban. The government brought in its own bill in 2023, which advocates criticised for having “too many loopholes.” Then it stalled.

A party split in public

A conscience vote means the Liberals are divided and are letting it show. Police Minister Felix Ellis and backbencher Michael Ferguson both said on social media that they oppose the bill. Ellis framed his opposition around young people and medical care: “Young people distressed about their body deserve our love and care. That care means honest, individual, evidence-based medical care from professionals who are free to use their best judgement.”

That framing, which treats a conversion ban as a threat to clinicians and parents instead of as protection for queer and trans people, will sound familiar to trans readers. Supporters point to what has happened elsewhere. Rodney Croome of Equality Tasmania told the ABC in August that there have been no convictions in other Australian states for conversations or prayer.

Rockliff is trying to hold both positions. “The number one objective is to stamp out harmful conversion practices, but what we need to do is ensure freedom of religion and freedom of speech is not impinged,” he said. In August he said he had “always supported a ban on conversion therapy, but the legislation needs to be balanced,” and that the Greens would need to “knock the rough edges off” to win broader support.

The strongest opposition inside government has come from Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Guy Barnett. He wrote to Women Speak Tasmania, which the ABC described as an anti-trans group, calling the bill “fundamentally flawed” and “amongst the most extreme of its type in Australia.” His argument was that it risks criminalising “certain conversations between a parent and their child.” He also asked: “What exactly is the problem the Greens are seeking to fix?”

The answer from survivors

Rodney Croome has answered that question for years. Croome, whose campaigning with Nick Toonen helped end Tasmania’s ban on homosexuality in 1997, told the ABC that conversion practices are “treatments that don’t work for a condition that doesn’t exist undertaken by people who aren’t qualified on victims who will be deeply harmed.” He added that they “purport to ‘heal’ vulnerable LGBTIQA+ people but actually deeply harm and sometimes kill them.”

Equality Tasmania called the conscience vote decision “sensible.” Croome’s request to undecided MPs is simple: meet conversion survivors before you vote, so you understand the damage it does. The Australian Christian Lobby opposes the bill. Women Speak Tasmania wants a parliamentary inquiry before any debate.

Why Tasmania’s history matters here

Tasmania’s LGBTIQA+ history goes to extremes in both directions. It was the last Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise homosexuality, in May 1997. That came only after Toonen took the state to the UN Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 1994 that criminalising gay sex could not be justified. Two decades later, in 2019, the same state passed some of the world’s most progressive birth certificate laws, which let people change or remove their gender marker by simple declaration.

Croome has summed up that arc before: in the late 1990s, Tasmania was “a by-word around the world for homophobia,” and it has since become “another word for tolerance, inclusion and social justice.” On conversion practices, though, Tasmania is behind: the ABC notes that most other Australian states have already legislated bans.

What happens next

The bill is expected to be debated before the end of the year, but no date has been set. Labor and crossbench support, plus a free vote for Liberals, gives it a real chance of passing without government backing. The details still matter, though. Barnett’s concerns point to amendments on parents and religious speech, and survivors will be watching to see whether any compromise brings back the loopholes that sank the 2023 bill.

For LGBTIQA+ Tasmanians, especially trans and gender-diverse young people, whose care is at the centre of this debate, the question isn’t abstract. It’s whether the state that once made gay sex a crime will now stop people from trying to change who they are.