Bradford Sue: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4460] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I follow on from my colleague across the Chamber to say that I too support this bill and the title as it stands. We in the Green Party believe that this bill is all about reform—nothing else. It is reforming something that has needed reform for a very long time. Our laws on prostitution are based on 19th century prejudices and morals and on legal codes that are well over 100 years out of date. It is high time we carried out a genuine reform of something that to my way of thinking is a moral question. It is a moral question that should not be legislated. In other words we are making a choice here that affects people’s lives. Do we really say that we have the right to maintain the criminalisation of a whole section of the population for consenting acts of sex between adults? To me that is what this debate comes down to. 
Peter Brown talked about this bill opening the door to wholesale pimping. Nothing could be further from the truth. From hearing over 2 years a large number of submissions and from taking part in much debate in this area I have found interestingly enough that of the groups that opposed this bill some of the massage parlour owners opposed it the most. These days they are the people who do—some of them—make profits from dreadful in some cases exploitation of sex workers. They are the sorts of people who feel threatened by this bill not the sex workers. The sex workers see it as a way finally to begin to be able to fight back and end some of the grosser exploitations they are subject to. Some of them endure the most horrific working conditions in brothels and massage parlours. They and people like me see this bill as an instrument of their liberation of their ability to unionise should they so choose. The bill also increases their ability to form themselves into self-employed groups of women or men as some of them already do as they see this as a much more empowered way of operating. If this bill goes through it will help to break down a lot of exploitation—gang control and the worst exploitation by criminal men that happens in some parts of the industry. 
Mr Brown also talked about there being perverse incentives to encourage child sex and to encourage trafficking of women. Again nothing could be further from the truth. This bill makes it very clear that there are very very high penalties against any form of coercion. There are very high penalties against people who use sex workers who are under 18. The young people under 18 will not be criminalised but those who use them will be. This bill strengthens the changes to the Crimes Act that were made several years ago. Some people in talking to this debate are simply flying in the face of what the bill actually states. 
Mr Copeland talked about prostitution already being legal in New Zealand. Well and good; he is technically correct. But with 12 sex workers in Auckland just a few weeks ago being arrested in one weekend members cannot tell me that this is a legal industry. It is not. Women and men are still being persecuted and prosecuted for taking part in this occupation. It is a really unfortunate argument to say. “Why do we have this bill? People don’t suffer from prosecution any more.” Indeed they do and I cannot quite understand why the police at this time are taking such punitive action especially when in Auckland we also have unsolved murders in the streets around Karangahape Road and south Auckland. If the police were serious they would be bending over backwards to develop and maintain a good relationship with street workers and sex workers. They are doing the opposite by picking on them and by persecuting people more than they have for years. I have to wonder about the role the police are playing in Auckland at the moment. 
Mr Copeland also talked about prostitution as a physically and mentally high-risk activity. I do not think there is anyone in the House who would deny that. Certainly no one who sat on the select committee and no one who has had anything to do with the industry would. The very fact that prostitution is a physically and mentally high-risk industry is the reason we have this bill. Decriminalising prostitution will make health and other forms of social services much easier for sex workers to obtain. The very fact that the possession of condoms will not be able to be used any more as a factor in prosecuting sex workers will be a huge step forward. I find it iniquitous that in the 21st century we should have a situation where people can be prosecuted and persecuted because they are found with a large quantity of condoms. This is in the age of AIDS hepatitis and many other diseases. It is unbelievable.