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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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STATUTES AMENDMENT (DECRIMINALISATION OF SEX WORK) BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (10:32): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935, the Equal Opportunity Act 1984, the Spent Convictions Act 2009, the Summary Offences Act 1953 and the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1986. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (10:34): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

What the bill seeks to do is to amend the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 to delete the term 'common prostitute' and to emphasise that commercial sexual services will not be supplied to children and abolish offences related to sex work. The bill also seeks to amend the Equal Opportunity Act 1984 and the term 'sex worker' to mean a person who provides sexual services on a commercial basis. Under this act there will be provision to not discriminate on the grounds of having been a sex worker or currently being a sex worker.

The amendment to the Spent Convictions Act 2009 refers to a conviction of a person for a prescribed sex work offence taken as spent on the commencement of this section. I also seek to amend the Summary Offences Act 1953 by deleting the definition of 'prostitute' from section 21 and also from the section that deals with 'premises to be frequented by thieves etc', which provides:

...persons without lawful means of support or persons of notoriously bad character;

A prostitute is also covered under that section, and I seek to delete the word 'prostitute' from that section. I also seek, under the Summary Offences Act, to delete section 25, which refers to soliciting; section 25A—Procurement of a prostitute; section 26—Living on the earnings of prostitution; and Part 6, which refers to brothels.

My bill seeks to amend the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, and this will allow workers and employers in the sex industry to access WorkCover like other industries. Obviously this will not apply to all workers in the industry, and many of them, I believe, will be seen as contractors and they will need to go through the same process as any other contractor. Under the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, my bill proposes that there be a six-month transition process so that people can identify what their status is in the sex work industry.

I have been campaigning in this area for sex workers to have the same rights and responsibilities as other workers for many years now. It really all started when I was the director of the Working Women's Centre, where sex workers came to see me about some issues: allegations of blackmail and being violently assaulted, and a number of other issues they said were associated with their work under the current system.

At that time I was very much a fresh graduate from sociology and politics at Flinders University and had taken a big interest in the Royal Commission into Human Relationships. Particularly I refer today to the final report, part 6, equality and discrimination, and also part 7, rape and other sexual offences. We are talking about 1977. The last recommendation for these sections, recommendation 47, states:

We agree that social policy should be neutral towards the fact of prostitution. The law in this area of sexual behaviour should impose new regulations or prohibitions except to punish assaults, protect the immature and prevent public annoyance.

Recommendation 48 of that report states:

By recommending decriminalisation we do not imply approval or encouragement of prostitution, but merely that we regard such legislation as an inappropriate use of the criminal law.

In its conclusion, the royal commission states:

We consider that the prohibition and punishment of prostitution as such is not justified except to the extent necessary to protect the immature, to prevent violence and coercion and to prevent public nuisance.

In this time of presenting legislation to the house, I spent considerable time looking at some of the reports that had been done in the house in the past. One of the reasons for doing that was that it was suggested to me that, instead of pursuing legislation in this house, perhaps a select committee could be set up or perhaps we could refer the issue to one of the parliamentary committees, for example, the Social Development Committee.

In doing some research, I found that this had been done many times, mainly in the Legislative Council but certainly in this house as well. One of the references I had was the 1980 select committee of inquiry into prostitution. Although since that time some people's views have obviously changed about how things should work, there were some interesting recommendations that came from that particular report. Page 18 of the 1980 report states:

(d) In the absence of satisfactory ways of suppressing prostitution or controlling it by legislation, the committee was left with the possibility of decriminalisation. Decriminalisation means not treating prostitution as a criminal activity. It does not mean legislation in the sense of the law—it does not indicate approval or disapproval by the state but rather the view that private sexual morality is not the concern of the law. Prostitution should be subject only to those controls appropriate to prevent abuses and those normally governing the operation of business, such as

(i) Location—premises used for the purpose of prostitution could be confined to certain designated areas;

(ii) Health—they would be subject to requirements of meeting certain building and health standards similar to those required in shops, restaurants, etc.;

(iii) Other standards, such as parking and access; and

(iv) Taxation.

In that report, the advantages included: make the industry subject to normal laws governing business activity; remove the possibility of police corruption and victimisation; give prostitutes the recourse to law in cases of rape, assault, exploitation of which they are generally unable to access at the moment. There was also a recommendation on page 20:

The committee recommends that it be an offence for persons under the age of 18 to engage in acts of prostitution.

It would be fair to say that my bill does not exactly reflect this report, but a majority of the recommendations that were made in 1980 are reflected in the legislation I bring before you today. On page 21, it says:

(1) that present laws should be changed;

(2) that maintenance of existing legislation, with increased police powers and penalties, be not considered;

(3) that legislation and regulation of the industry be not accepted;

(4) that the law be altered to provide for decriminalisation of prostitution but with appropriate safeguards.

Mr Speaker, I am not sure of Molly Byrne's seat; you might be able to remind me.

The SPEAKER: Todd.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: Todd. I note that the former member for Todd, Molly Byrne, has followed my campaign with great interest. I note that she was a contributor to this 1980 report. I also note that my late friend Mary MacLeod was the research assistant. I guess this is why this 1980 report has some interest to me. I remember speaking to Mary MacLeod at the Working Women's Centre about this issue.

There have been other inquiries in parliament with regard to prostitution. I read with interest the interim report of the Social Development Committee from July 1995, where it refers to the Millhouse bill from 1980, the Pickles bill from 1986, the Gilfillan bill in 1991, and the two Brindal bills in 1995. In this interim report, although there were not many recommendations, they were certainly looking at registering brothels and escort agencies, making sure that people were over 18 years who were involved in the industry and that they were free from prosecution.

There were also limits suggested on advertising (I must say, in hindsight, it is probably not a bad idea) on TV and radio—and probably we would add the internet, although advertising is happening, probably as I speak—and that advertising should be dedicated to the print media. I am sure The Advertiser in particular would be very pleased if that support continued.

The interesting thing too, though, in this report and also in the 1980 reports is the discussion with regard to health and safety and particularly sexual health. There seems to be a myth in our community that by decriminalising sex work, we will in fact have an increase in sexually-transmitted diseases in our community. There does not appear to be any evidence anywhere that I can find that supports that proposition, and even in 1980, the report that I talked about says that much evidence points to the fact that the worst transmitters of venereal disease are those who have sex casually and frequently, are ignorant of the various types of diseases and their symptoms and do not have regular checks.

That was recognised in 1980 and it has certainly continued by the evidence that has been provided to say that, although obviously all of us need to make sure we are healthy and have our proper checks, sex workers are not the vectors of disease, particularly sexually-transmitted disease, in our community. I also looked very briefly at the report from 1995 which talks about the free availability model. On page 22 and 23, it states:

...no penalty for a sexual act carried out in private between 2 consenting adults, even where money is exchanged. Free availability would see prostitution treated as any other business with the same benefits and restrictions.

Then it refers to the New South Wales legislation that came into being. We call it the decriminalisation model. At that stage it was being referred to as the free availability model. I am not sure I like that term but that was the term that was used at the time. I also note in that report that there were dissenting statements from the former member for Hanson, my immediate predecessor, Mr Stuart Leggett and there was a minority—

Mr Venning: He was a good member.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: He was, and he is a good person—report A and also a minority report B, and I understand that the former member for Hanson, Stuart Leggett, also put out in addition to his dissenting statement a minority report and—what was the former name of the seat of Croydon?

The SPEAKER: Spence.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: Spence. The member for Spence at the time, Michael Atkinson, and the member for Hartley at the time, Joe Scalzi, also put out a minority report and I must say that it was an excellent report.

The SPEAKER: The member for Ashford should refrain from referring to members by their Christian name and surname.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: I am sorry, sir, but it is just very difficult. When you look at even the current parliamentary reports, they actually refer to members by their name—

The SPEAKER: They do.

The Hon. S.W. KEY: —whether they are Legislative Council people or House of Assembly people, and certainly in the reports where I am going to quote your good self, you are only named as Michael Atkinson MP.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: Did you say Joe Scalzi made a minority report?

The Hon. S.W. KEY: With the member for Spence—yes, there was no height thing involved. On page 145 of what I would say is an excellent minority report, I quote the good members when they say:

Ours is a policy of containment, not eradication. We propose to remove the absurdities and inconsistencies from the South Australian legislation of 1907. This type of legislation may have inherited a moral purpose from the suffragette promoters in Great Britain of the 1880s—

I am not sure whether I agree with that point—

but when it was considered for transplantation in SA, thoughts of real-estate values were more to the fore.

I thank members for listening to my contribution and hope you will support my bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Gardner.

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