Those practices include attempting to change people's sexuality and/or gender, and under the bill it will be an offence to perform them on a child or young person aged under 18 or on someone with impaired decision-making capacity.
However, the Attorney-General would need to give consent for those prosecutions, something Emery said was one cause for concern.
"Imagine if an Attorney-General in the future is a homophobic person. These things aren't going to be prosecuted as they should be.
"Another thing is the need for support for survivors of conversion practices, and free support."
Conversion practices didn't need to be "water torture or electrodes to the brain", Emery said.
"It could literally be a conversation saying being gay isn't right, or being transgender is a mental illness.
"If you're a teenager or even younger, and your parent sends you off to a child psychologist who is constantly telling you that you're wrong for feeling this way, imagine how much damage that is doing."
Shannon Novak at last year's Whanganui Pride Week. Photo / Bevan Conley
Auckland-based artist and activist Shannon Novak was a part of the five-person Conversion Therapy Action Group that helped push through the legislation.
Novak spent time in Whanganui last year as part of the city's Pride Week and exhibited his work at Sarjeant on the Quay.
"For me, it was personal," Novak said.
"An ex-partner of mine committed suicide a few years ago, and he was the victim of conversion therapy in Taranaki in the 1990s.
"It was an example of the long-term damage that therapy had done. He never really got over that."
There was "always room for improvement", but the bill provided a strong foundation and a great start, Novak said.
Emery said she received a message from Whanganui MP Steph Lewis last August, telling her that more of the submissions received on the bill to that point had been against the banning of the practice.
"It was about what she could do to help, and how we could get submissions in etc.
"From that, there has been an incredible wave of support, not just from rainbow people. Churches have stood up as well, saying it goes against what they believe."
At the time of the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill passing, there had been close to 107,000 public submissions, the highest number ever received on a piece of legislation in New Zealand.
Emery said there was still opposition to it in certain parts of the community.
"There are a lot of churches in Whanganui, so there has got to be one or two at least that aren't in favour of rainbow people.
"I would be super-keen to have a chat with any churches that are inclusive, or want to have a further conversation about how damaging it [conversion practices] can be to the rainbow community."
Like Emery, Novak said providing support to those who had survived conversion practices was an important next step.
"It's also about understanding that it's a ban, but it doesn't stop it [conversion practices]. It will continue, but it might just go further underground.
"We still need those support mechanisms in place, because it's still going to happen."
Novak said there was pushback on the bill from both outside and within the rainbow community, mainly around the scope of it and who the law applied to.
"Conversion therapy is more than just changing someone's sexuality, say from gay to straight. It's also about gender identity, and people saying you shouldn't be trans or you shouldn't transition to another gender. Or, you shouldn't express yourself as a female if you're a male.
"It's bringing it back to heteronormative ideals - I don't think all of that was covered [in the bill]. Again, that's something we can work on.
"There are so many facets of the rainbow community, it's so diverse and complex, so capturing it all in one bill is a really difficult task."
