Bradford Sue: Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:656] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Right from the outset I want to make it very clear that the Green Party will not be supporting this bill. We think it is a disgrace that the Manukau City Council which is often socially progressive on other issues should scapegoat sex workers in this way and try to unilaterally reverse the intention of legislation passed in this House. In 2003 the Prostitution Reform Act was brought into being with solid support from the Green Party. We believed and we still do believe that it was completely wrong to go on living with an archaic law that criminalised generations of sex workers mainly women for a victimless so-called crime in the name of an antique morality shared by only some of the population. The Prostitution Reform Act decriminalised prostitution in this country and although I recognise that both Parliament and the broader community are deeply divided on this issue I believe that Manukau City Council needs to realise that the offence of soliciting is no longer on our law books. 
I do not understand why Mayor Barry Curtis who has been around the political world for quite some time and others involved with putting this bill forward think that it is legally viable for a local authority to create its own criminal law for one small part of New Zealand. I guess at one level I would have to say “Good on you!” to Manukau City Council for being a legal rebel and trying to take this step towards establishing the independent republic of Manukau but on every other count I think that the council is heading completely down the wrong track and I do not think it will ever be really viable or desirable for Manukau City to go it alone as a sovereign entity. 
Instead of putting forward this ill-advised bill Manukau City should be looking at some of the reasons it continues to face perceived problems with street prostitution. Following the introduction of the Prostitution Reform Act the council along with councils in places like Christchurch and Hamilton took the unfortunate step of passing a by-law that effectively prohibited small owner-operated brothels from functioning—again flying in the face of the provisions of the Act itself. That unlawful by-law places extreme restrictions on the location of small brothels in Manukau thereby undermining one of the key objectives of the Prostitution Reform Act which was to reduce street prostitution by encouraging sex workers to operate in the safety and discretion of brothels rather than out in public. Manukau City’s restrictions mean that many prostitutes have been unable to establish safe locations from which to work. Its by-law only keeps sex workers visible on the street and away from the increased health and security of brothels. If Manukau City Council thinks it has a problem with street prostitution it is hoist on its own petard and I hope that the court action that is coming up will mean that its dubious by-law on brothel location will bite the legal dust before long. 
As I said earlier the council’s latest legislative effort before us today also flies in the face of the original Prostitution Reform Act because it is not just about controlling street prostitution but also aims to prohibit soliciting in all public places except brothels—which would impose severe criminal sanctions on both sex workers and their clients. For example a sex worker and a potential customer arranging a transaction in a pub would be rendered criminal by the bill. As if that is not bad enough clause 8 of the bill if enacted would also give the police authority to engage in entrapment exercises—for example by having officers pose as prostitutes and effectively entice members of the public into what would be a criminal offence under this bill. 
It is outrageous that the council has even conceived of this giant step backwards not just in terms of prostitution law reform but also with regard to basic civil rights. Indeed the bill overall offends against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 as I think even the Hon George Hawkins has acknowledged. Not only clause 8 but also clause 12 proposes unreasonably to restrict within Manukau City the rights to freedom of association freedom of expression and freedom of assembly that are all affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Through clause 12 the police are given the power to require a person suspected of an offence under the bill to provide the name address and whereabouts of anyone else connected in any way with an alleged offence. That falls foul of section 23 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which gives people suspected of an offence the right to refrain from making a statement—one of the most fundamental safeguards of individual rights within our country’s criminal justice system. 
Beyond all the legal problems with the bill before us tonight there is also the question of what is actually going on on the streets of Manukau City. It is apparent from recent media and police reports that youth gang violence is seen as a much bigger problem at the moment than street prostitution. Will councils suddenly produce a bill to try to deal with that problem in a similar way rather than deal with the real causes like poverty poor health poor education and social alienation? Manukau has far bigger issues at the moment than the offence caused to some citizens by the presence of visible sex workers on the streets. Assaults on shop owners serious domestic violence theft of all sorts and assault are far more prevalent and serious crimes than those associated with a prostitute seeking and gaining customers. The police and social agencies already have their hands more than full in South Auckland. Recently there were an estimated 900 unallocated police files. I would question whether the hard-pressed force actually wants to spend its time chasing people down for soliciting or prostitution-related offences when they are already totally unable to keep up with the existing workload. 
Even if this bill somehow did get through in the end it is unlikely to have any effect on street workers anyway. Opponents of prostitution reform seem to forget that sex work has been around pretty much as long as humans have been and that people worked the streets just as visibly and in similar numbers before decriminalisation ever happened. I would hate to see Manukau going back to the situation where not only street workers were subject to arrest and prosecution on a daily basis but also health workers for example could be prosecuted for giving out condoms or for facilitating other health and safety initiatives with local prostitutes. 
And just what is the situation at Hunters Corner which is the area Manukau City Council usually talks about in relation to the impact of street prostitution? The Prostitutes Collective in Auckland which deals with sex workers all the time believes that workers have become the scapegoat for a whole lot of other problems in that part of town and for problems not of their making—for example a drop in property values. In fact the council needs to consider that other market forces may be driving property values down in relation to a changing demographic of who is living in the area and to the building of new shopping centres in South Auckland that has led to a decline in strip retail with the subsequently empty shops being replaced with bars and gambling venues. 
Who are the street workers at Hunters Corner? The latest figures show they comprise about 70 prostitutes 60 of whom are Maori  nine Pasifika and one Pakeha. That tells us quite a lot. On top of that 50 percent of them roughly are transgender. I wonder how MPs here tonight—at least those from parties like Labour the Maori Party and others who believe in supporting the needs and rights of those most marginalised by reason of race class and gender—feel about supporting a law that proposes to harass and recriminalise that particular very small group of people. 
This Parliament changed the law on prostitution for good reason. Those of us who support reform do not want to see Manukau or any part of Aotearoa return to the inequities and dangers of the bad old days just because some councillors are responding to a moral panic. This bill is a gross overreaction to a problem that the Manukau City Council has partly created for itself. I urge the council to embrace the spirit of the Prostitution Reform Act review its restrictive by-law on brothel location and involve itself in the review process established under Part 4 of the Prostitution Reform Act. We wrote those review procedures into the legislation at the select committee because we wanted all interested groups to be able to evaluate the effects of decriminalisation and to develop positive responses to any problems that might become apparent. If Manukau City Council were serious about wanting to deal with the plight of Maori and Pasifika street workers it would not be doing it through oppressive and legally dodgy bills like this; it would be proactively involved with the Prostitution Reform Act review and it would work alongside relevant community groups like the Prostitutes Collective to resolve problems. I hope other MPs and parties here tonight will join the Green Party in consigning this reactionary ill-judged bill to the dustbin of history where it so rightly belongs.