Police said they have had zero complaints and pursued zero investigations since the law was enacted. (Image: Archi Banal)
Police said they have had zero complaints and pursued zero investigations since the law was enacted. (Image: Archi Banal)

PoliticsMay 24, 2023

Revealed: the conversion therapy prosecutions since legal ban kicked in

Editor-at-large
Police said they have had zero complaints and pursued zero investigations since the law was enacted. (Image: Archi Banal)
Police said they have had zero complaints and pursued zero investigations since the law was enacted. (Image: Archi Banal)

Here’s what the police and the Human Rights Commission told us about action pursued so far.

In the 15 months since the Conversion Practices Prohibition legislation came into force, no legal action has been launched under either the criminal or civil strands of the law. The Human Rights Commission cautions that there is no cause for alarm, but some are concerned about a lack of police initiative on one hand and a “bureaucratic jungle” on the other.

Police had not received any complaints nor launched any investigations, detective inspector Warren Olsson told The Spinoff in response to an official information request. For its part, the Human Rights Commission said it had received 33 inquiries, but none has been formally escalated into the civil redress process. 

Under the act, which came into force in February 2022, practices – including “conversion therapy” – undertaken with “the intention of changing or suppressing the individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression” become a criminal offence where that person is under 18 or their decision-making is impaired, as well as cases in which “serious harm” is caused.

An alternative approach provided by the act is the civil redress pathway. Launched in August 2022, it is overseen by the Human Rights Commission, which is tasked with pursuing dispute resolution and mediation where possible. If that is unsuccessful, it can be advanced to a civil proceeding with the Human Rights Review Tribunal. Neither the criminal nor civil strand is retrospective. 

“We are pleased with the numbers to date,” said Andre Afamasaga, a former pastor and survivor of conversion practices now at the Human Right Commission. “The act was not passed with the aim of generating prosecutions, or on the belief that significant numbers of people were affected by the practices, but because they significantly harm an already vulnerable group of people.”

The commission characterises its complaint process as “free, safe, private and confidential for everyone involved. It helps people to discuss issues in an open, safe and constructive way. The process can help both sides agree to a fair result.” 

Afamasaga added, by email: “The act is not retrospective so many survivors are not in the timeframe.” He further pointed to “significant barriers” that they “need to overcome to come forward”. Those include “high levels of controlling indoctrination that isolate them from outside information and support, or even from independent news sources and peer-reviewed scientific evidence”, as well as, for many, “paralysing levels of shame and stigma that prevent them reaching out for help. This is particularly strong for people who once pursued conversion practices for themselves.”

Given those factors, “we expect the number of enquiries to remain lower than with other matters within the commission’s scope”, he told The Spinoff. “The commission does provide a pathway for civil redress but a key part of our work is to provide information and education about the harm caused by conversion practices and the new legislation.”

Of the 33 who had inquired with the commission, some had been directly affected, while others were concerned about third parties or seeking resources or guidance on the law. The commission was allocated $2.25m for the period from 2021 to 2023 to resource the response to the new law, but was not expecting further funding. 

“Tackling ideologies that lead to conversion practices will take years and an all-of-society approach,” Afamasaga said. “With only baseline funding levels available, groups needing education about conversion practices may have to rely on online resources when leaders are telling us in-person delivery is needed due to the sensitive subject matter.”

Shaneel Lal at parliament (Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty Images)

Shaneel Lal, co-founder of the Conversion Therapy Action Group, which advocated for the legislation, said that while they had not “expected an immediate spike” in prosecutions, “a lack of trust in the institution” meant many in the queer community were wary of approaching police, while the civil redress route risked amounting to a “bureaucratic jungle”, said Lal, with “the onus on the part of the victim”. It was questionable, they added, whether the funding was sufficient to adequately handle the response.

The requirement for a sign-off by the attorney general in criminal prosecutions was another hurdle that worked to dissuade both potential complainants and the police, Lal said. David Parker’s office confirmed that no requests for prosecution to be consented had been received. 

Lal was disappointed by a “lack of initiative” on the part of the police, with no sign of investigation into allegations of conversion therapy at Bethlehem College in Tauranga and in the counselling practice of David Riddell in Nelson. In the latter example, Riddell said he would continue to offer conversion therapy through his Living Wisdom School. 

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    Riddell told RNZ in June 2022 he would still be providing “misbelief therapy” to clients who were “conflicted with unwanted same sex attraction”. He said: “Contrary to what the gay juggernaut would have you believe, not everyone who experiences same-sex attraction welcomes it.” David Riddell did not respond to emailed questions about whether he maintains that position or is aware of any complaints or investigations. 

    For the Christian lobby group Family First, which advocated against the legislation, the lack of action being pursued under the act supports its view that “this law was always a solution looking for a problem”.

    The conversion therapy legislation attracted more than 105,000 public submissions, a record high. “In banning conversion practices in New Zealand, we join other countries around the world in sending a clear message that all people, including young people, deserve to be protected, no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression,” said then justice minister Kris Faafoi. “All people, including rainbow communities, deserve to have their rights and dignity protected, and to live their lives freely just as they are.”

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    a factory with smoking towers, with $100 overlaid and a red colour wash
    The Glenbrook steel factory (Photo: Wikimedia Commons; additional design by Tina Tiller)

    PoliticsMay 23, 2023

    Why did we give $140m to a shady Australian corporate? Because we have no choice

    a factory with smoking towers, with $100 overlaid and a red colour wash
    The Glenbrook steel factory (Photo: Wikimedia Commons; additional design by Tina Tiller)

    Labour and the Greens just donated an enormous sum to a dodgy Australian corporate. Duncan Greive says the move is horrible but entirely necessary.

    On Sunday, PM Chris Hipkins flew to Auckland and headed to a steel plant at Glenbrook, just south of the city, to announce a corporate gift of $140,000,000 (sometimes you have to write it out to really feel the number) to NZ Steel. The money is to help the company buy a shiny new arc furnace which will help it achieve what you’d think it should have been morally and legislatively bound to do anyway: start the process of making its business less catastrophic for the planet.

    On the face of it, this is a very tough sell for a Labour government, and worse for the Green Party. Glenbrook cranks out a significant proportion of New Zealand’s emissions thanks to being run on coal, the dirtiest fuel of all. Despite the name, NZ Steel is not in fact a New Zealand company – it’s an asset owned by BlueScope, a highly profitable, publicly listed Australian corporation, one that recently saw an executive jailed for his part in attempted price fixing. It also made around $3bn in profit last year. Yes, that’s three billion dollars – meaning this $140m investment from the government amounts to less than 5% of last year’s earnings.

    Yet there were Hipkins and Greens co-leader James Shaw, the minister for climate change himself, proudly announcing they were picking up almost half the cost of the furnace. The optics were so bizarre that National – the party of business, which might be expected to grumble and wave it through – condemned the move in surprisingly stark language. “Just this week, this budget couldn’t find money to actually help support Kiwis going through a tough cost of living crisis,” said leader Christopher Luxon. “But all of a sudden they can find $140 million as a subsidy paid for by Kiwi taxpayers and give it to a large foreign, multinational, profitable company.”

    Energy minister Megan Woods, prime minister Chris Hipkins and minister for climate change James Shaw prepare to announce the new deal at Glenbrook (Photo: Finn Blackwell/RNZ)

    A new age of climate pragmatism dawns

    The situation seems entirely upside down politically, yet can also be seen as the beginning of a new climate pragmatism, one that prizes impact on emissions above any other metric. 

    It sheds new light on a situation Stuff reported a month ago, when environment minister David Parker refused to intervene to stop NZ Steel getting ahead of a new law that would have allowed Auckland Council to consider climate change when assessing the company’s new application for a 25-year consent. Parker was harshly critiqued by Lawyers for Climate Action for his decision, but the weekend’s news gives context to that somewhat puzzling story – talks were likely already under way. 

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    Duncan Greive
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    Glenbrook is one of a small number of uniquely power-hungry industrial plants. NZ Steel was already exempt from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), having baldly stated that it would have shut the factory were it to have to pay the cost of its emissions. It’s easy to imagine some climate activists viewing that as a necessary or even desirable outcome – as the ETS operating exactly as intended. Yet the factory does not exist in a vacuum, and runs hard into the realities of industrial policy. 

    New Zealand has a need for steel one way or another, and any not manufactured domestically would need to be imported, with us as a small nation having a limited ability to influence the carbon emitted. Hipkins underlined that yesterday, noting that along with reducing emissions, the spending will “ensure that we are creating new jobs and protecting existing jobs, whilst also protecting vital supply chains for our overall economy”.

    A new subsidy rising?

    Beyond its immediate impact, there is also an implicit danger of perverse incentives. Will other big emitters look at this deal and start to imagine that large proportions of the cost of their own carbon reduction efforts will be matched by the government? It would be irrational not to. While there are persistent complaints about tax rebates within the film industry, this looks a clear precedent for large emitters to have around half the cost of their future investments paid by the government.

    That might not be what we want, but it’s inevitable, and exactly what was intended with the Climate Emergency Response Fund, the $4.5bn contestable money bag set up in 2021. While to date much of the spending has been on government initiatives like half-price public transport, for which the cost-benefit is much less clear, this is a major step towards involving the private sector in emissions reductions.

    There is a number that neatly captures the value of this deal to New Zealand: $16.20. That’s the cost per tonne of emissions saved, which cannot be read as anything other than a screaming bargain. Currently our Emissions Trading Scheme, nascent and imperfect as it is, prices the right to emit carbon at around $55 per tonne. The Climate Change Commission recommended a much higher rate, closer to $200, but cabinet rejected that last year – a decision that is now subject to legal action. At either price point, $16.20 represents extraordinary value.

    The scope of Glenbrook’s carbon footprint is vast. The annual emissions saved are roughly analogous to all the car use in Christchurch, equal to 1% of our total emissions and greater than 5% of the total we need to cut between 2026 and 2030. To achieve that scale of cuts cannot be done without embracing head on the moral complexity of the calculus. It will necessarily involve deals that can be read as rewarding polluters, and taxpayers writing cheques to companies with chequered histories locally and internationally. 

    Some will find that repugnant, and view it as a failure of conviction on the part of our elected leaders. That perspective is valid, but also misguided. The catastrophic weather events of earlier this year were more proof than we could ever need that purity must give way to practicality when it comes to decarbonisation. It will involve dirty deals with major industrial conglomerates whose behaviour is morally bankrupt at times. That is unfortunate. It is also entirely necessary. 

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