Paraone Pita: Prostitution Reform Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
Paraone Pita: Prostitution Reform Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6590] 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Speaker a tena koutou i tau mai neii te ponei. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Speaker and greetings to you who have settled in tonight 
.] 
Notwithstanding the amendments that have been made to the original bill I wish to make the following points in support of my argument for continuing to vote against the bill. I want to focus on one or two issues. 
First of all I want to talk about youth. Youth face all sorts of problems many of which we did not have to worry about when we were young. Those problems include the cost of education which deters many young people from entering tertiary education let alone from studying anything other than a vocational course that will provide them with a meal ticket. Whatever happened to the idea of youth being a time to explore and find out what one wants through trial and error and of valuing education for its own sake? Many young people today cannot afford that luxury. The rising cost of housing makes even leaving home a mission impossible for many stifling their need to be independent and also putting pressure on their families who did not count on having their children living at home until well into their adulthood. Then there are all the temptations and peer pressures that for a lot of young people involve risk taking including taking drugs and drinking to excess. 
Youth is all about taking risks. I am sure that even some of us remember a sense of being bulletproof. It is an exciting feeling and the world can seem full of possibilities. But for some young people it is all too easy to make a wrong move and to be lured into a lifestyle that seems easy and even glamorous. Who cares what the job involves when the money and the hours are good and many politicians in Parliament are saying it is OK? Well I care. I have seen enough of our Maori young people destroyed by that lifestyle and I cannot in all conscience give my vote to something that is so ruinous to our young people. 
One may say that it is a matter of freedom of choice and that sex workers enter the industry willingly. That may be so but how much information do young people of 18 really have? What can they really know of the realities of this occupation? How can they have the maturity to really think about what they are doing in terms of the rest of their lives? For many the reality is so horrific that they take drugs to dull the pain. The money becomes a habit and they begin to wonder how they could survive without it. The social ostracism and disapproval become a reality so they start to identify more with their colleagues and before long the industry becomes a lifestyle. But it has its price and that price is in terms of self-respect and self-esteem the lack of which can be manifested in many ways—members can just ask any police or prison officer or counsellor. I put it to members that a young person entering the sex industry will regret it later on and that the experience will scar that person for life. I do not want that for our young people. I want to deter them from making a bad choice that will stay with them for ever. 
Another issue for me is normalisation. The thing that worries me the most about the possibility that this bill will become law is the outcome of the normalisation of prostitution. That sends out a signal that it is OK to work as a prostitute and that prostitutes will be protected by the law just as though one was working in a factory or an office. I am not saying that sex workers should not be protected from the exploitation violence and abuse that is a daily reality for most of them. What I am saying is that by treating prostitution like any other occupation the message is that it is like any other occupation when to me it clearly is not. How many other industries do members know of where taking drugs to cope with one’s shift is the norm? How many employees do members know of who face the threat of rape and abuse on a daily basis? How can we condone our young people believing that selling sex for money is a reasonable career option? All too often it is young women from disadvantaged and often abusive backgrounds who make that choice. Those women need help and guidance rather than to be told that it is OK to be a prostitute. To me prostitution is not OK. It is not normal and I do not want to see any more young lives destroyed because of it.