Collins Judith: Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill — Second Reading 
Collins Judith: Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5654] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I would like to thank the previous speaker the Hon George Hawkins for bringing forward this bill and for having the courage in his caucus to do so. This bill is not perfect but I say to the House that I commend the bill because it is a cry for help. The people of Papatoetoe Manurewa and Otara—and I will say specifically the three main areas of Hunters Corner Papatoetoe Otara Town Centre Otara and Great South Road Manurewa—are generally poor. They are people who do not get a lot of choices in life. They do not get a lot of choices about where they live what they can pay and they do not earn a lot of money. If they earned a lot of money they would not live there. They do not have choices. When their neighbourhood is defiled in the way that it is they do not have the choice as to whether they leave because they are poor people. They do not have that choice. 
It is all very well for us here working in our jobs in Wellington or living in our homes which by the way are not in Hunters Corner Otara Town Centre or Great South Road Manurewa to be able to say: “Oh well they are exaggerating. Oh well it’s not really that bad.” Well it is that bad. Unlike many of the people on the Local Government and Environment Committee I have been to see what has been going on there. I have been there at night with the police to see what has been going on and I do know this: the people who are walking their trade parading their trade around those corners are not people who feel they have much by way of choice in life. They are people who need help. They are certainly not people whom we should be encouraging to keep on with that activity. Those people need help. 
I am appalled to see that the police have said they do not want this law to come in. The reason they have said it is that they do not have enough police to do what they are doing now in Counties-Manukau. We know that. I brought a petition to this House asking for more police for Counties-Manukau because Counties-Manukau which of course includes Hunters Corner Papatoetoe Otara and Manurewa has the worst policing to population ratios anywhere in the country. We have the worst situations to deal with and we get no help from central government—nothing more than the bare minimum. For the select committee to tell the Manukau City Council and its brave Mayor Sir Barry Curtis that it is supposed to work with central government somehow to find local solutions is a load of claptrap. I have never heard such nonsense in my life. This is the attempt by the council to work with central government to find local solutions. It has given us its local solution. It may not be perfect but the select committee should have changed it. The council could have come along to the select committee and at that stage the bill could have been made perfect. But this is its attempt. 
When the prostitution law reform was passed in 2003 it was dumped on local councils with no funding available to help them no way for them to be able to stop what is happening and no attempt at all made to give the councils the power they are supposed to be exercising. The council is beside itself. I should declare an interest as a ratepayer of Manukau City—as are many other people in this House. Frankly we are sick of paying for the nonsense that comes out of Wellington. It is all very well to have these laws in Wellington to say: “Oh it works here in Wellington City.” But we in Counties-Manukau are not central Wellington; we are not Wellington City. A lot of our people do not get choice. They are not the people who decide whether there is too much graffiti here or there are too many used condoms being thrown over the wall of their house. Nobody gets that choice. These people have been crying out for something to happen. 
I wonder what will happen with Labour members tonight. Will they block vote as they normally do on these matters against this bill yet leave those people in South Auckland who voted for them just to wallow in it and say: “Too bad! You don’t get a choice.”? Well they have a choice because they can start looking at who votes for this bill and who does not and they can start putting their tick in the right box. Frankly this bill is a cry for help and it is our duty in Parliament to listen to it. This is not just a Counties-Manukau cause as has been rightly said by the previous speaker. It is central Christchurch and it is central Auckland. But can I say that Counties-Manukau has the worst statistics in just about everything. We might have some of the better MPs certainly on this side of the House but we certainly do not have the good statistics on anything else. What we have is a Government that has washed its hands of this and that for some reason is saying: “Oh well we don’t want to know about this because it might be difficult. We might criminalise people.” This is not about criminalising people. This is about trying to get some people some help. 
I have seen kids wandering around prostituting themselves at those places. No wonder there are so many murders in South Auckland around these areas. No wonder there is so much crime. These are kids of 13 14 and 15 years of age who are prostituting themselves because they owe P debts to the local gangs and they are sent out to work by the gangs. I heard this nonsense from the Prostitutes Collective saying that there is no evidence of gang activity in prostitution. Oh for goodness’ sake! Where do they hang out these people? They certainly do not hang out in Auckland or Counties-Manukau. What they should do is have a look at the Triad activity that has been happening on the North Shore and elsewhere in Auckland. Look at what has been going on. Yes it has happened. There are gangs running strings of young girls and boys around the Counties-Manukau area. 
If we do not help Manukau City to deal with this situation it will simply say: “Look enough is enough.” Ratepayers will end up having to pay for private security firms. Even then what can they do? It is a public place and it is legal. What will we say to the businesses that operate from there? Imagine how hard it is for businesses to set up in a place like Hunters Corner in Papatoetoe. They know that when they come in on a Monday morning they will find used condoms faeces and all sorts of things thrown on their walls and in their car-parks. Imagine what it is like for them. What is the choice they make—when they do have a choice about where to set up a business? They say that they will go somewhere else. They will go to a better part of town. So that whole area very quickly goes further and further down. Who misses out? It is the poor poor people who have no choice. They do not have the opportunity to say: “Oh well I think this area is going a bit downhill. I think I will go somewhere else.” They do not get that choice. They are not the people of Herne Bay. They are not the people of central Wellington. They are not even the people of Mount Albert. They are the people of Counties-Manukau and it is about time we gave them a bit of the power that we keep telling everyone we are going to give them. 
We have given the councils the power of general competence. Let us just give them the power to do something about this. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes they did. Let us just give them some reason to have some faith in central government to back them instead of constantly attacking them and making it harder and harder for them to represent the ratepayers of Counties-Manukau.