The Cook Government is making slow progress with its plan to abolish the Gender Reassignment Board through the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment (Sex or Gender Changes) Bill 2024.

The bill completed its second reading in the Legislative Council a fortnight ago and is now awaiting passage to the committee stage where the proposed amendments will be discussed.

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The new law proposes abolishing the body and replacing it with a new procedure that will make it easier for people to change their gender on official documents.

Last week, the bill was put on hold and moved back from the agenda. With Parliament now in recess for several weeks, the bill will not be up for debate again until September 10 at the earliest.

There are still 21 council meetings scheduled for 2024. No meetings are expected to be held in 2025 as the state elections will take place in March.

In the next stage of the process, the Council considered a number of amendments to the details of the legislation, including proposals from Dr Brad Pettit of the Greens and independent MEP Sophia Moermond.

Among the proposed changes is a suggestion from Dr Pettit to lower the age at which someone can apply for gender reassignment surgery to 16 from the proposed 18. Moermond proposes raising the age to 25.