Labor, Conversion Therapy and Draco

We can’t say we were not warned: since 2017 Labor representatives have been announcing their intention to ban, if not criminalise, so-called “conversion therapy”. Back in 2017, the Victorian Health Minister, now Attorney-General, Jill Hennessy declared their new Health Complaints Act would “provide the means to deal with those who profit from the abhorrent practice of gay conversion therapy … which inflicts significant emotional trauma and damages the mental health of young members of our community”. According to Ms Hennessy, the crime of conversion therapy is so grave it demands “reverse onus” of proof in which the “accused is required to prove matters to establish, or raise evidence to suggest, that he or she is not guilty of an offence”[i].

In October 2018, the Labor government’s LGBTI task force, its Commissioners for Gender and Sexuality, Health Complaints and Mental Health, the Victorian Human Rights Law Centre and the Australian Research Centre in Sex…