A consultation draft of the Tasmanian Greens’ Conversion Practices Prohibition Bill 2026 would classify certain pastoral conversations with children as child abuse.

None of that has attracted much media attention. It should.

The bill defines a “conversion practice” as conduct directed towards a person “whether with or without the person's consent”, meaning a person who freely seeks pastoral support for unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion could not lawfully receive it.

Even more concerning, under the draft’s consequential amendments the definition of “child abuse” would extend to cover engaging in a conversion practice directed towards a child.

It states, “it is not necessary to prove that the conversion practice caused injury to the child”. The practice itself is the offence. No injury need be proved.

These are not abstract concerns. The bill will even take into account anonymous complaints. Criminal and civil liability run concurrently, with no requirement that identifiable harm be established before either is triggered.

The bill is not as severe as Victoria’s Conversion Practices Prohibition Act 2021.

Unlike Victoria’s law – which advocacy groups have since promoted as a model to the United Kingdom and Europe – the Tasmanian draft exempts religious teaching, prayer that does not seek to change a person’s orientation or identity, and parental conversations.

In Victoria, prayer itself can constitute a conversion practice. But the Tasmanian exemptions are narrower than they appear.

The bill permits a pastor to state what scripture teaches. It does not permit a pastor to pray in hope that the teaching takes effect. Parents may tell their children what they believe; they may not seek to persuade.

The line between permissible religious expression and criminal conduct runs through the question of intent – and intent is not a shield in a system where the accuser is anonymous, harm need not be proved, and silence is not permitted.

A child abuse charge that requires no proof of injury, triggered by an anonymous complaint, against a parent who cannot remain silent.

That is what the bill proposes.

Public submissions close July 31. For a bill that would reclassify pastoral conversations as child abuse without requiring proof of injury, it has attracted remarkably little public attention. That is of concern.