The Western Australian government says it will not introduce promised legislation to ban gay conversion therapy before next year's state election.

In 2022, the then Mark McGowan-led Labor government promised to introduce laws to ban the practice bringing it into line with most other states.

After questions from the ABC, the Attorney General John Quigley's office has conceded "there will not be enough time" to introduce legislation before the March poll.

WA, Tasmania and South Australia are the only states where conversion therapy is not outlawed, with the latter introducing legislation to parliament this month. 

The practice is based on the idea that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity can be changed, suppressed or eradicated through practices ranging from psychiatric treatments to spiritual intervention.

A spokesperson for Mr Quigley said the government continued to engage with community members with lived experience of conversion therapy to help draft future legislation.

They said the reforms would include the criminalisation of conversion therapy as well as a civil response scheme to address incidents where harm did not meet the criminal threshold, or where the survivor did not want to go through criminal proceedings.

"Given the heavy legislative agenda and the number of sitting days remaining, there will not be enough time to introduce these reforms before parliament rises for the year," they said.

"The Cook Labor Government is committed to introducing and passing these important reforms which it aims to do should it win the state election."

Survivors need to guide reform

Ending Conversion Practices WA committee member and priest Chris Bedding said while he understood the delay would frustrate some, it was important for the government to "get it right."

Mr Bedding said there was a list of LGBTIQ+ reforms to come first and the government had promised it would introduce the conversion therapy changes by the end of 2025. 

Mr Bedding said it was vital that WA followed Victoria's lead by putting the lived experiences of conversion therapy survivors at the centre of informing policy decisions.

Mr Bedding, who has been an Anglican priest for more than 20 years, said conversion ideology was found in some faith communities as well as within some cultural groups, and seemed to be more prevalent outside of the metropolitan area.

'Should have been dealt with'

A LGBTIQ+ group in WA's south has criticised the state government for not making the reform a priority despite its commitment to a ban in 2022.

Albany Pride spokesperson Tiger Bird said it should have been dealt with a long time ago, but they did agree a delay may be best if it meant the voices of survivors were taken into account.

"It's disappointing, and we advocate for these reforms to go through but these legislation and reforms really need to be guided by the voices and experiences of survivors," they said. 

They also said the future legislation should not have religious exemptions.

"That's actually where a lot of the damage is being done to our community is under this spurious idea that freedom [of] religion means you can cause damage to other people," they said.

Faith-based reform opposition

WA director of the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) Peter Abetz said he believed conversion therapy legislation was not necessary.

"I don't believe that any coercive type of activity is happening, and if it is, there are laws I'm sure that can deal with that, because nobody has the right to coerce another person to undergo any kind of psychological treatment or medical treatment of any sort," he said.

"But the issue with conversion therapy is those who are advocating for it, they don't want it limited just to coercive measures, but even simply hearing someone express a view different to their own, they sometimes classify that as being exposed to conversion therapy."