This new bill introduced in Australia should concern us all!

Imagine sitting down with your fifteen-year-old daughter. She has just told you she identifies as a boy and wants to start hormone therapy. You listen. Then you tell her you love her, and that you don't agree.  

In Victoria, a government booklet already tells parents that praying with their child about this can "harm" them. In Western Australia, the Attorney-General has promised a law this term. And in Tasmania, the Greens have tabled a Bill that could see kitchen table conversations investigated as child abuse. 

Wherever you live, Tasmania's Bill should concern us all. It reaches further into family homes and churches than any law in Australia, and activist groups will soon push every other state to match it. 

The Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026 is now before the Tasmanian Parliament. Emeritus Professor Patrick Parkinson AM calls it "some of the most draconian legislation ever to be introduced into an Australian Parliament". I agree with him. 

The Bill says a parent can "discuss" sexuality and gender with their child. But if you disagree with your child, you have done more than discuss. Under this Bill, that is enough to place you under investigation for child abuse. 

It reaches your church too. If a young man asks your pastor to pray with him because he wants to live by his faith and is finding that hard, the prayer itself can be treated as a 'conversion practice'. His consent is no defence. 

It leaves no room for a young woman who regrets her transition and asks for help to find a way back. Anyone who helps her risks the same accusation. 

It creates a Conversion Practices Commissioner with powers similar to a Supreme Court judge, able to investigate you without a complaint ever having been made, and make you and your pastor answer for private conversations, while taking away your right not to answer. 

Victoria has had a similar law since 2022, but nowhere near as extreme. Its government booklet lists "praying with your child for them to stop being LGBTQA" as something that can "harm your child". Church leaders speaking for two million Victorians say pastors and parents are now afraid of breaking the law. 

In Western Australia, activists have already asked the Attorney-General to make sure his Bill is no weaker than Tasmania's.

Whatever passes in Tasmania sets the bar for WA and the rest of the nation.