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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-07-10 Daily Xml
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NEW ZEALAND SEX WORK INDUSTRY

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:36): I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of the member for Schubert. I consider him to be a good friend and I have always enjoyed working with him. I am very sad that he has come to this decision. I am hoping that his decision is not related to another event that happened on the weekend, which is the marriage of the former member for Taylor and Labor minister, Trish White, to Joe Thorpe. The member for Schubert will understand the connection I am making. It was a wonderful wedding and we are very pleased to see them announcing their relationship in a formal way and also to see the joy from the three children who are now part of that unit.

Part of the research that I have been doing over a number of years (but particularly recently) is in relation to the New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act 2003. I am very interested to see what has happened with that act. As I have reported in this house before, I think in 2010 there was a review of the act to see whether the end of the world had come because New Zealand had decided to decriminalise the sex industry.

Because New Zealand has two tiers of government—local government and also a federal government—I have been particularly interested to follow what was happening in the local government sector, which admittedly has a different responsibility to our local government in some ways, particularly with regard to the sex work industry.

Because there have been some concerns raised about sex workers who work on the street, I was particularly keen to see what had been debated in New Zealand. It was interesting to note that there was a private members' bill called the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill. In 2005 it was first introduced and there were quite different levels of discussion and debate within that council sphere led, as I understand it, by councillor Dick Quax.

This debate went on. That bill did not end up being successful but, in 2010, the council had another bill which was called the Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill. Although that did have some success, one of the problems that that particular council had was that they were amalgamated with the Auckland Council, so it was thought that, because they were such a large area, it would be inappropriate to enact that particular bill. I guess the proponents of that bill had to go back to the drawing board. Needless to say, my understanding is that that type of bill has not been introduced in recent times.

The other area I thought particularly interesting was the fact that there was a bill introduced which became the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004. That was to do what I would imagine would be similar to a spent convictions provision where people who had any offences relating to sex work would have their record wiped clean under that act. Other criminal offences on their criminal record remain. There is also the interesting point that in New Zealand sex work is recognised as legitimate work but not condoned.

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