Jacinda Ardern promised to outlaw LGBTQ+ conversion therapy if re-elected on October 17. Ardern told Express: “People should not be discriminated against, bullied or hurt for being who they are.
We need to rally around that simple premise”. She believes the fact conversion therapy has not yet been outlawed is “a prime example of where an element of our system allows for quite damaging activity, which in modern New Zealand should just not be happening”.
A previous bill to criminalise the practice was unsuccessful which Ardern attributed to the country’s mixed-member proportional electoral system, meaning her party does not govern alone.