Statutes Amendment (Decriminalisation of Sex Work) Bill

Second Reading

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (10:56): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The bill, as members would know, passed in the Legislative Council without amendment. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Hon. Michelle Lensink for her coordination and also the select committee that was established for this bill. The bill seeks to decriminalise sex work in South Australia, to amend the Equal Opportunity Act 1984, the Spent Convictions Act 2009 and the Return to Work Act 2014, to provide sex workers with workplace and antidiscrimination protections afforded to other employees or workers in South Australia.

My aim is to ensure that sex workers have the same rights and responsibilities as other workers, self-employed workers, contractors and subcontractors and independent workers working from a residence. The bill, through decriminalisation, would see sex work be equivalent to other work. Any regulation of the industry is through existing statutes and regulations. If sex work were seen as legitimate work, it would come under all the other conventional employment health regulations, be subject to standard local council by-laws, directions and planning controls and able to adopt the longstanding and existing health and safety codes of practice that have been supported in the ACT, New South Wales and Western Australia.

As members in this chamber would know, sex workers are already recognised under the work health and safety legislation that South Australia and many states have adopted. Jules Kim from Scarlet Alliance told the Legislative Council select committee inquiry, 'Sex work is an occupation and can be regulated as any other occupation.' She referred to New South Wales and New Zealand, both of which have a decriminalised legal framework for sex work, and went on to say:

It does not mean removing criminal penalties for exploitation, forced labour, violence, trafficking, rape…assault…use of children in commercial sexual services—

in fact, involving children at all in anything to do with the sex industry. Referring to the select committee report, the New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective (I have had the honour of meeting with this group in New Zealand) argued that expanding workers' rights and protections to sex workers protects sex workers by giving access to appropriate legal remedies. It is interesting to note that in New Zealand decriminalisation of sex work has been around since 2003. It seems to be a model that is certainly worth looking at.

My meetings and research into the New Zealand decriminalisation system support the improvement for those workers. The New Zealand police, when I met with them, confirmed that they had worked closely and do work closely with New Zealand sex workers and their organisation and have found them to be very helpful to identify any criminal activity like drug dealing, organised crime issues.

I should say at this point that after many years of research into the sex work industry, from my days at the Working Women's Centre and the United Trades and Labor Council in particular, my university studies and as an MP, I have had the opportunity to meet and take advice from many sex workers and their organisations. I have also interviewed and been briefed by sex workers in the United States of America, Canada, England, Sweden, the Netherlands, Indonesia and New Zealand, and I have talked to sex workers and their organisations all around Australia. I very much value the work and advice from the Sex Industry Network, Scarlet Alliance, SWAGGER, New Zealand Prostitutes' Collective and the UK prostitutes' collective.

I am proud to say that this bill has been used as a model by sex workers and organisations in Toronto, England and Ottawa, and they are very impressed with this model that some of our South Australian members of parliament are putting forward. I have also had the honour of meeting and corresponding with these organisations on an ongoing basis for many years now. I appreciate that there are many other models of so-called reform for sex workers—the Swedish model that criminalises the users of sex services and the legalised model—and I would like to put some points to you with regard to the so-called Swedish model.

I have had the opportunity to go to Stockholm and meet with members of parliament as well as a number of people who are involved in the sex work industry. I was told that their model that was introduced into parliament passed by a very slim majority. In fact, I understand that to start off with this particular model, the Swedish model, was not a very favourable or accepted model within Sweden but, as time has gone on, this is the model that the Swedish—particularly the government—actually hold up as a model for other countries, and other countries have followed that model.

I think first of all that we need to think about the geographical location of Sweden. We need to think about some of the problems, such as refugees. Certainly since my visit this has become more of an issue. There are also guest workers and sex workers, young women and particularly young men and boys who have come from Eastern Europe in particular, and there are some issues that the Swedish government has had to deal with as a result of that. I am not in any way taking away from the serious problems that were certainly raised with me on my visit there.

I had the opportunity through my own arrangements also to meet with local sex workers in Sweden and their organisation. I spoke to those workers and I have read a number of references both for and against the Swedish model. It would seem to me that, certainly with the big international issues that Sweden may have, this may be a way of dealing particularly with people who are trafficked into sex work and people who are there to try to get citizenship in Sweden.

These might be issues because of the bigger refugee and forced worker issue in that country. This is their way of dealing with that problem. Certainly the local sex workers and their organisations thought that this was a very harsh way to deal with the work they have been doing for many decades and will continue to do. While not being criminalised themselves, they are often under quite heavy surveillance and are forced to protect their local Swedish clients, and this is an added responsibility they really do not want to have. Obviously, the right to privacy and freedom from undue state control over sex and sexual expression is something we should bear in mind with this model.

I do not think the Swedish model would be appropriate in South Australia. While I do not want to criticise other countries for the decisions they make and the models they adopt, I do not think that we have the same issues, fortunately, in South Australia. During the select committee report, the Federal Police confirmed that in fact there is not a big sex trafficking or sex slavery issue in South Australia, I am pleased to say. There are some issues in Australia, but this is definitely not something that is a priority for the Federal Police in South Australia. I would argue that it is probably not a definite issue for the police in South Australia, our local police, either. There are certainly plenty of other things for them to look at.

Because I have spoken on this issue many times and people are pretty clear about what my view is with regard to the sex industry, I will just read from some sex workers who work in South Australia, and also work in Australia as sex workers, to tell you their views. Before I do, I know that last week members in this place received a document from me, from Scarlet Alliance and SIN, talking about decriminalisation and talking about the international as well as local support for the decriminalisation model. I think that people would have to be pretty impressed with the number of people who are in that document and the number of organisations that actually see decriminalisation in South Australia, and certainly in Australia, as being the model that we should look at.

I will call this worker TC. She says in her email:

I am writing to add my support for your position on the Statutes Amendment (Decriminalisation of Sex Work) Bill 2015 and believe that it should be passed without amendment. This bill is world leading legislation and the best way to support those who choose sex work as their occupation.

Currently, sex workers in South Australia are subject to stigma, discrimination and are at risk of being further marginalised if they seek help from the police when they have been victims of crime. The Decriminalisation bill would address these issues and afford sex workers protection from crime and victimisation just like any other worker.

An email from another worker from New South Wales (I will call her UC) says:

I am a sex worker from NSW. Luckily, I get to work in an environment where:

—I am not criminalised and my clients are not criminalised

—I am not threatened with entrapment by the police

—I am able to report to the police without worrying that they will, in turn, prosecute me for my sex work

—I will not get a criminal record if found working in the sex industry so I am able to move easily between occupations

—I know I have equal rights to other workers and will not stand for exploitation, abuse or harassment.

I have never worked in street-based sex work but I can imagine that if I was pushed to designated areas (which are often industrial or isolated areas)—

This is the case in the ACT, that sex work is pushed into designated areas. That is my point rather than UC's point—

I would be more vulnerable and afraid and people would take advantage of my vulnerability.

There are so many reasons why working in a criminalised environment harms us and makes us more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

I urge you to vote in favour of the Decriminalisation Bill without amendments. The proposed Bill is the most comprehensive sex industry Bill we have to date.

I will have to read this email in part due to the time, but this is from HD:

The purpose of this letter is to demonstrate support for the Decriminalisation Of Sex Work Bill. My name is HD and I am a touring (travelling) sex worker. This bill affects me directly as I rely on work generated in South Australia to help me earn a regular income.

Many livelihoods just like mine are at stake with this bill.

I am writing to you to encourage you to support this bill without amendments.

There will be [many] anti-sex-work lobbyists who put their own mistaken morality above the safety and security of women (and men) who work in South Australia's adult entertainment industry. These lobbyists claim they want safety/security too, but they are too busy conflating WORK (CONSENSUAL) with TRAFFICKING (UNCONSENSUAL).

It strikes me as bizarre that they target the sex industry, they do not call for the abolition of other high-trafficking industries such as child care (nannies and au pairs), hospitality (restaurants & bars) and car washes.

It is imperative that leadership listens to the voices of those who are directly affected, not those who think they know better.

I commend the bill.

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:10): I rise to speak on the Statutes Amendment (Decriminalisation of Sex Work) Bill 2015 and in doing so indicate that I will be supporting the second reading of the same. I am mindful that there have been some proposed amendments circulated, and they will be considered obviously in committee. In respect of the bill itself, I place on the record my appreciation to the select committee and members thereof, who undertook a comprehensive investigation into what options there may be to deal with these matters and, in particular, a draft of this bill was presented to them for scrutiny and investigation.

It is fair to say that the report, which ultimately recommended the progressing of the bill, covered a number of issues. I just want to outline some of these because I think it is important to remember in this debate the areas of concern that were raised by people who presented submissions and advocated either support or opposition or alternates.

Firstly, as the mover of the bill has indicated, this is a recognition of the rights and protections of those who work in this industry, which has operated for time immemorial and which our state has dealt with in a punitive way and therefore has failed to recognise that in the work these men and women undertake they are exposed to a number of problems, including in respect of their working conditions, which need to be addressed.

Over the years, in relation to legislation—that is, the laws that currently criminalise sex work industry operators—it is surprising to me that when it has come to the crunch members of the Labor Party, who purport to support the rights of workers and protection of workers, have been so inconsistent in their preparedness to find a way to provide this protection. It seems that their zest for occupational health and safety is for everyone else in some ways, but they have not addressed this. The committee did and I recognise that.

The second issue is the need for people in this area to be able to legitimately be recognised and to gain access to finance. That speaks for itself. The third, of course, is the stigma that relates to work that is otherwise deemed illegal. I consider that unacceptable and, depending on one's view on this practice, whether they agree to this being a legitimate practice or not, as to whether they should be relieved of that, but I for one clearly do.

The fourth issue is to enable people to facilitate exiting the field of work, and this was a rather curious addition, I thought—that is, to be able to have a legitimate occupation that will then enable them to move out of it if they seek to do so. It is not always easy to do that and be recognised for work to do that. It makes it difficult for them to gain employment in other industries while it is currently illegal, especially if a police clearance is required. I think it is very important that we provide this in this legislation.

The fifth issue is the impact on policing. I just want to say in respect of this that I, too, am very concerned about the police's approach in this matter. Back in 2011, former commissioner Mal Hyde made it clear that the sex worker laws needed change. He said:

'The law is really quite archaic. For example, it's an offence to receive money in a brothel but you can use a credit card. That just shows you how long ago the laws were made and they're just not in a modern form,' he said.

When the then senior police officer Linda Fellows, the assistant commissioner of crime, and Julie Foley, the senior sergeant, on 11 May 2016 gave evidence, Assistant Commissioner Fellows said:

We don't take a view on whether the sex industry should be decriminalised or not; however, I think it is reasonable to say, and I think we have been consistent in our views over many years, that there are some definite challenges and difficulties in policing the current legislation as it exists.

To find the ultimate statement after the conclusion of the committee by correspondence of the current police commissioner, Mr Grant Stevens—this is on 23 May 2016—to suggest that they were really completely hands off on this, I found curious at best and grossly inconsistent with what had been a consistent message from the very people who have to monitor the operation of this industry but, more particularly, who continue to have a role in relation to the illegal activity that may sit around it.

I am deeply disappointed by his approach. I consider it to have been weak and inconsistent with what his prior commissioner and senior police officers have clearly sought in terms of some relief from the archaic and inadequate way in which we have dealt with this industry. Whatever approach people here in the parliament take, at the very least we need relief in that regard. I would urge members to see through what I see is a tissue of inadequate response by the current commissioner.

The impact on policing is therefore something that needs to be considered, particularly as the police have a number of other responsibilities, as I say, to continue to operate. One that was pertinent to the committee was the sixth area in relation to organised crime—sexual servitude and trafficking. Quite clearly, issues were raised about the extent of this type of practice in South Australia. The committee looked at the situation in New South Wales. Michael Keenan, the federal minister, in respect of the jurisdiction relating to trafficking, said on 13 October 2015:

Due to the clandestine nature of the crime type, there is little reliable data about the nature and extent of human trafficking at a global, regional or domestic level. However, when compared to global trends, it is clear that instances of human trafficking remain relatively uncommon in Australia. Opportunities to traffic people into, or exploit people within, Australia are limited because of our strong migration controls, geographic isolation, and high degree of regulation, compliance and enforcement.

I hope that is still the case. From time to time, members of parliament, and I am sure others, would have people come to them to say that they consider there is a problem in a property or area. I recently had one when there was a claim that there were multiple Chinese girls operating sexual activity in a high-rise building in Adelaide.

I was satisfied that the complainant, who brought it to me as well, had referred the matter to the national authorities, and whatever action needs to be taken to investigate it has hopefully been undertaken because that is the objective—to make sure that, if we do become familiar with cases such as this, we report it to the necessary authorities and we are satisfied that those matters will be followed up. As rare as such incidents may be here, even with the reassurances of the federal government, we still need to be vigilant about these matters and ensure that young women, in that case if it is true, are not being exploited or in breach of migration rules.

Finally, in relation to the level of criminal activity within the community, the committee did not receive any evidence to confirm criminal activity. Human rights issues were raised, and again these were usually along the lines of whether or not they supported the proposal, depending on who was presenting the argument.

On health, I think it is important to note, from the evidence from SA Health, that the communicable disease rate was often generally lower than in the general population. However, we must be vigilant to ensure that the providers of this service are entitled, as a matter of right in their workplace, to require the user of the service to wear a sheath, a condom or whatever protection is necessary. With that contribution, I indicate that I will be supporting the bill. I thank the committee for their extensive work and I will listen with interest to other proposals that are submitted.

Ms SANDERSON (Adelaide) (11:20): I also rise to make a contribution regarding the decriminalisation of the sex work industry. I indicate that I would like this to go through to the second reading so that the six amendments that I have put forward—

The SPEAKER: Beyond the second reading, I think you mean.

Ms SANDERSON: —beyond the second reading to committee—can be discussed and debated. We all know that the sex work industry is a profession that is considered to have been the earliest profession. Under the current laws of criminalisation, this work is still occurring, so clearly criminalisation and the laws that we are using have not stopped this profession.

What we are looking at today is the decriminalisation of the industry, as occurs in New South Wales and New Zealand, which is all about the protection of the workers so that they can feel quite safe to report any incidents and go to police without any fear of arrest. The member for Ashford has held many, many forums over the 7½ years that I have been here, and possibly even before that, where members have had the opportunity to hear from sex workers in the industry about their views, their fears and what it is they would like achieved. I am confident that that is certainly the intention of the member bringing this bill forward: that it is all about the protection of the workers.

I have spoken to many people about this matter, including the Christian Lobby, who also agree with the decriminalisation of sex workers. However, they would prefer that then there was a criminal penalty for the users of the sex workers, as in the Swedish model. That is not the bill before us, so that is not something I can change this bill into becoming. The Christian Lobby has been sent a copy of my amendments and I feel that they were okay with those amendments, that I had done the best to satisfy all their concerns.

The way I work as a local member, particularly with conscience votes, is to try to find out the conscience of the 30,000 people (23,000 voters) who live in my electorate. What is their conscience? What are they thinking on this topic? So I put out a survey to my electorate, and that was also online. I had 910 respondents, which I think is very good. As most members would know, when you do surveying you do not get a high response rate, so many surveys that I have done I have done multiple times.

For example, on euthanasia, over 7½ years I would have sent that survey out electorate-wide at least three or four times. I would have filing cabinet drawers full of responses on not only one question but on multiple questions, of which this is one. This question on the decriminalisation of sex work is also one I have asked multiple times. I am confident in the results and that the amendments that were put forward represent the views of the people I am here to represent. This is not about my personal opinion or what I want; it is about representing the people of Adelaide, as that is my role. There were three main questions that we surveyed, the first being:

What is your opinion regarding the proposed decriminalisation of sex work in South Australia, as occurs in New South Wales and New Zealand, noting that sex work is actually legalised in Victoria, Queensland, the ACT and the Northern Territory?

The response was that 84 per cent were in favour of decriminalisation and a further 5 per cent if there were further restrictions in place. I was fairly confident that 90 per cent were in favour, so that is why I am supporting the bill to go through to the committee stage in particular, to consider the amendments of any other members in this house as well.

Then there was a question of brothels. I note that in debate in the upper house there were discussions around limiting whether they could be near schools, churches or kindergartens. One of the members commented that that would pretty well block out the whole of Adelaide's CBD because we are a city of churches, after all. If you put a 200-metre limit, they would overlap. There would probably be nowhere. In fact, speaking to a school principal, I was quite surprised at her opinion. This was back when there was an issue with bikini girls in the city. Flyers were being put on cars and some people were calling for the industry to be shut down and moved away.

She made the comment that, for some of the students at her school, it was quite likely that it could be their mothers who worked there and it could be their fathers who used the service. She said that we are part of a community. Children all have parents and they all have jobs. She was of the view that we are part of a community and that we are part of a city where different things occur. Regarding the brothels, however, I felt that it was too difficult, and it did not get up in the upper house, to restrict them on the basis of metres or location. That was quite unworkable.

The results from my survey were that around 52 per cent were okay with permitting brothels and another 15 per cent were okay if further restrictions were put in place. After reading through the hundreds of comments that were posted on this survey—there was room for comments, which I found very useful—I discussed with parliamentary counsel two ways that I could further protect the public from brothels if they were worried about them; one was through advertising laws.

As with the issue with the bikini girls that flyers cannot be put on cars around the area, if children are walking to school in the city and they are walking past a brothel, there might be a business name but there certainly should not be a list of all services provided. It should not be very obvious what is going on in that area. We do not want billboards, and I do not think that either the users of the brothels nor the workers would like that kind of advertising anyway. I do not think it is in the best interests of anybody.

The second way we considered putting in further protections was to restrict the ownership of brothels to be similar to or the same as the laws for those who can own tattoo parlours. Criminal organisations cannot own them. We felt that was another way of protecting the workers. What we do not want is women being forced to work against their will, or people being brought in for citizenship from other countries and they are coerced into this work and intimidated by gangs or illegal groups. They are the two ways I have tried to satisfy the concerns regarding brothels.

The third question that was asked regarded sex workers soliciting on streets. This was quite unpopular, with only 33 per cent support among the 910 respondents, some of whom were outside my electorate. From further discussion, I have had comments from mothers saying, 'I don't want my children asking: what is that lady doing?' Elderly people, and people of all ages, said that they were being harassed at bus stops, being asked if they were sex workers, which we also do not want. I also think it is very unsafe for the sex workers to just get into random cars with strangers on the street. I do not think that that is necessary in this day and age. We have the internet, we have apps, we have so many other ways.

I was surprised that the Christian Lobby could name where all the brothels are; I did not know where they are. Without advertising, clearly many people know where this work is going on and there is no need for women to endanger themselves by putting themselves on the street. I was also surprised by feedback from men who felt harassed and accosted by women approaching them on the street. They do not want sex workers on the street either. My amendments maintain that as a criminal activity. I note particularly that I have had complaints from people on Hanson Road, and also Churchill Road in my electorate, that they have been approached while just delivering flyers on Churchill Road for letterboxing.

I do not feel that I want to live in a society where that happens. That is not acceptable. I do not want to make it even more acceptable by decriminalising sex work, which would then potentially mean that more men would assume that, if you are a female on a street, you could be a sex worker, and they then use that to harass. I hope that members who even intend to vote against this bill in the end will at least let it go through to the committee stage so that it can be debated fully and amended to be as safe as possible so that if it does go through at least, in my opinion, it will be the best version it can be.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. P. Caica.