Shing delivers emotional plea in marathon debate

A marathon debate surrounding new gay conversion therapy legislation saw Member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing deliver an emotional speech to parliament on Thursday.

Shortly after the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill was passed through the upper house, Ms Shing declared on social media “it was hard and it was full of pain and distress. But we did it.”

The controversial bill passed through parliament 27 votes to nine after a 12 hour sitting.

Under the reforms, anyone found trying to suppress or change another person’s sexuality or gender will face up to 10 years’ jail or fines up to $10,000 if it can be proved their actions caused serious injury.

In an emotional speech, Ms Shing said “we have come a long way” but she was still the only “openly gay woman in the Victorian Parliament.

She spoke about the emotional trauma of a person who is denied the ability to express their sexuality and be accepted.

She said she wanted to recognise and provide dignity to victims and survivors of change and suppression practices that had for too long taken place under the guise of conversion therapy or treatment in order to fix a perceived failure, to correct a wrong or to right a depravity.

“I want to acknowledge and pay respect to and honour those victim and survivor groups who continue to work so hard to recognise trauma and pain and hurt and shame as it arises for members of our community,” she said.

Ms Shing said she spoke on a “deeply personal basis” because she wanted to talk about the impact of being different.

“It is very, very easy to say that we are not broken and that we do not need to be fixed.

“These are important messages, particularly from our allies…particularly from our leaders…from so many members of this government and from so many members of the opposition who privately acknowledge to me the importance and necessity of a bill just like this— in the form that has been presented, unamended—to recognise the pain and the trauma and the hurt of victims and survivors,” she said.

Ms Shing spoke about the human impact on individuals “when the world that we live in as LGBTIQ folk says in fact that we are other and that we are different.”

“I want to recognise that it is all too convenient for people who oppose this bill to start from the position that they do not have anything against LGBTIQ people like me.

“It is this cognitive dissonance, it is this doublespeak, that does such a disservice to the pain and the disadvantage, the discrimination, the harassment, the vilification that we face every single day, and this is the cause and this is the root of shame.

Ms Shing said shame was at the heart of the need for this legislation.

Ms Shing called out members of the lower house, including Member for Narracan Gary Blackwood, who had abstained from voting so that their names were not recorded as opposing or supporting the bill.

Member for Eastern Victoria Region Edward O’Donohue said where no division was called, it was normal for members to be absent from the chamber.

In closing, Ms Shing told her upper house colleagues if they opposed the bill they should never dare march at Pride ever again. “You will be our shame.”