Labor’s Shadow Minister for Health, Catherine King, says a Shorten government would move to outlaw discredited gay conversion therapies.

Currently only Victoria has legislation outlawing the practice, but King says a Shorten Labor government would work with all states and territories to bring in the relevant legislation.

“Gay conversion therapy is discredited and dangerous,” King told Fairfax Media on Saturday.

“As the federal shadow health minister, I urge all jurisdictions to follow Victoria’s lead and ban gay conversion therapy. If this issue isn’t resolved before the next election, and I’m lucky enough to serve as health minister afterwards, it’ll be a personal priority for me.” King said.

The practice of advertising counselling or course which claim to adjust a person’s sexuality from homosexual to heterosexual have widely been driven underground, but investigations by journalists have revealed they they still exist in evangelical churches and ministries.

The issue came to prominence last week when a Victoria branch of the Liberal party put forward a motion for the party’s state conference that called for legislation that ensured that when doctors offered counselling for people who are gay or transgender it included options for counselling against being gay or transgender.

The motion was pulled by state president Michael Kroger after a significant pubic backlash, but federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has defended the motion as “freedom of speech”.

Appearing on ABC Radio National Hunt said he was opposed to gay conversion therapy but defend the right of people to discuss and debate the motion as a matter of freedom of speech.

OIP Staff