Copeland Gordon: Prostitution Reform Bill — In Committee 
Copeland Gordon: Prostitution Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5741] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I want to speak today about the women working as prostitutes in New Zealand. Clause 3 outlines its purpose as safeguarding the human rights of prostitutes and protecting them from exploitation whilst promoting their welfare and occupational health and safety. It is not that I wish anything less than that for prostitutes; rather my problem is that I want much more than that for them. When I speak of women prostitutes I thinking not just of those who are already employed and represented say by the Prostitutes Collective but also of the young women who will should this bill become law be enticed by financial inducements into becoming prostitutes in the future. Also I think it would be helpful if we were to focus on these women as individuals bearing in mind that as Nanaia Mahuta has pointed out to us many of them perhaps 50 percent will be our beloved Maori women. 
Women are created in the image and likeness of God. They are endowed with the dignity genius and feminine mystique that rightly belong to women. They are rational and free beings called together with men to live in a communion of love. They are coequal with but complementary to men. In marriage they along with men are called into a unity of the two so that side by side and together they exist mutually one for the other. It is in fact through a sincere gift of themselves to that other special one that both men and women frequently move towards their self-realisation and their self-discovery. Sadly however the human race has for thousands of years battled against the tendency of men to dominate women. This domination which is also negative for men has particularly severe and unfavourable ramifications for women. 
Emancipation for both men and women finally means freedom from all forms of domination exploitation and violence. That is why in Sweden prostitution is officially recognised as a form of male sexual violence against women. In that nation it has been concluded that prostitution is a serious problem harmful not only to the women and men involved in the activity but also to society at large. I am prepared to predict here tonight in the New Zealand Parliament—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I heard a cellphone ring. There is a Speaker’s ruling that cellphones are not permitted in the Chamber when they are turned on. The member will stand and apologise. 
John Carter 
: I apologise. It was in my pocket. It was turned off but it must have bumped on. It is now turned off again. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: I am prepared to predict here tonight in the New Zealand Parliament that Sweden is on the right side of history in this matter. The Swedish example seems likely to be followed by Finland Norway France and even the Netherlands which is presently known as the sex capital of Europe. By contrast the bill we have before us tonight can in no sense be regarded as forward-looking; rather it attempts to wind back the clock to a past dark Victorian-style age in which society in general was prepared to permit and approve the sexual domination of women by men. 
There is nothing in this bill that can be described as progressive or liberal. Indeed when we focus on the reality of the exploitation and domination that is involved in brothel-keeping procuring and pimping it can not even be described as libertarian but simply as libertine. Therefore the essential question before Parliament tonight is whether we want to move New Zealand forward into a new age of healthy male-female relationships or whether we want to take it back into the dark ages of male domination and sexual exploitation. In this regard I must in particular appeal to all the women in this Parliament but I also appeal to the men. I ask each person to examine his or her own conscience regardless of whether that person is or is not a member of the executive or like myself simply a first-term novice MP. 
I am as a male daring to raise these issues in the Chamber tonight because I have received moving submissions along these lines from the following organisations: the Women’s Health Action Trust; the New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women; the international Coalition Against Trafficking in Women; the Maxim Institute; the Commissioner of the Salvation Army—and I would like to mention that we are approaching the 120th anniversary of the Salvation Army. There is no organisation in modern times that has a more distinguished track record in terms of helping women adjust their lives and to leave the prostitution industry to enjoy that God-given dignity and femininity to which they were originally called. The list continues: Cardinal Thomas Williams Archbishop of Wellington and the Metropolitan of the Catholic Church in New Zealand the Christchurch City Council the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards the Catholic Women’s League the Association of Catholic Women the Catholic Help Group and ECPAT New Zealand which is the global network to protect children against commercial sexual exploitation. 
I also want to bring to the Committee’s attention an article written by Debbie Hager and Anna Pickering of the Prostitutes Collective which is a vested-interest group that supports rather than opposes this bill; yet its article contains the following: “This bill retains the provisions about brothel-keeping and living off the earnings of others.” However the bill of course does no such thing. It does exactly the opposite. I quote further: “This legislation provides access to massage parlours and other premises by health and safety personnel.” Again that is wrong. The present bill in fact repeals the Massage Parlours Act. Accordingly it would appear that the Prostitutes Collective which as I do supports the general purposes of this bill as per clause 3 does not understand that it actually repeals the crimes of brothel-keeping pimping and procuring and the Massage Parlours Act. This is understandable since these very important repeals which are at the heart of this bill are buried away in clause 10 in just a couple of lines. I find that confusion about the purpose of the bill to be common right across New Zealand. 
As I have said previously and repeat now I think it is wrong for Parliament to be repealing brothel-keeping pimping and procuring and indeed the Massage Parlours Act by the stealth of the progressive-sounding purposes of clause 3 when the decriminalisation of those highly exploitative activities is regressive. The predominant purpose of this bill as set out in clause 3 namely to “safeguard the human rights of sex workers and protect them from exploitation” is in direct contradiction to the provisions of clause 10 which repeals brothel-keeping soliciting and procuring. 
For that reason alone this bill cannot be allowed to stand because not only is it internally inconsistent; it is indeed contradictory. I therefore find it difficult to believe that anyone on the basis of reason and common sense could support the bill as it has been presented to the House. 
I want to suggest a way forward in this matter that the Committee might be prepared to consider. Two options are open to us: either we can vote to defend this bill on its third reading or we can attempt to clean it up through the Supplementary Order Paper process by eliminating at least its great evils. If members are of that mind I suggest they vote in favour of the following Supplementary Order Papers—firstly that of Dr Wayne Mapp which puts in place some common-sense limitations surrounding soliciting but retains brothel-keeping procuring and pimping as crimes under the Crimes Act; my Supplementary Order Paper which reinstates the Massage Parlours Act and the same would be true of Larry Baldock’s recent Supplementary Order Paper; my Supplementary Order Paper that bans the advertising of commercial sexual services; and Lianne Dalziel’s Supplementary Order Paper which revokes the visas of international students who work in the prostitution industry. 
Since the Committee last convened on this bill I and my colleague Larry Baldock have undertaken a poll through UMR Insight of 500 representative New Zealand voters and I would like to spend a moment if I may in announcing to the Committee the result of that poll. The poll asked New Zealanders three distinct questions: “Did you know that under the current law prostitution itself is legal?”. Sixty-one percent of New Zealanders responded “No”. They did not know that prostitution in New Zealand was already legal—in fact it has never been illegal in this country. That illustrates very strongly the proposition I have put to the Committee tonight—that there is a tremendous confusion in this country about what this bill is about and only gradually are people waking up to the fact that the bill legalises brothel-keeping. The second question was: “Brothel-keeping and bringing customers to prostitutes for payment are presently illegal. Do you think these activities should become legal as proposed by the Prostitution Reform Bill?”. The responses were very interesting. The “Yes” number was 43 percent. The “No” number was 42 percent. So we can say in statistical terms that it was a fifty-fifty outcome. 
However when we look at the detailed breakdown of that question—about whether brothel-keeping should become legal—by gender and by age we have some startling results. The females of this country are against legalising brothels by a margin of 46 percent to 38 percent—the others being “unsure” and so on; whereas the men of this nation by a directly opposite amount—49 percent to 37 percent—are in favour of that course of action. That proves exactly the point I made earlier in my speech—which by the way I wrote before we got the poll results. When we look at the breakdown by sex the first point to make is that the females are against and the males are basically for. However this is something that is much more interesting than that: the females in the 18 to 30 age group—that is the young women who will be affected most by the bill if it is passed—by a margin of three to one are against the legalisation of brothel keeping pimping and procuring. That is an extremely important statistic. It says to me again that my prediction is exactly right and that Sweden is on the right side of history and we are on the wrong side of history. The young women of this country are saying to each person in this Committee tonight whether male or female and to the executive outside it: “Do not legalise brothel-keeping pimping and procuring in this country because it will exploit us and it will be bad for us.” This is the most self-realised group of young women in the history of this country. 
I want to say one more thing. If we look at our $10 bill we will see the face of Kate Sheppard one of the most heroic women in the history of this country. She fought to give women the vote and to see women treated with equal dignity along with men. I believe she would turn over in her grave if she were here tonight to see us even contemplating the legalisation of these highly exploitative matters. I have to go right back almost to slavery to think of anything more exploitative than what we are proposing to do in this bill in terms of brothel keeping pimping and procuring. It is wrong and we should put a stop to it here and now. 
I seek leave to table three documents. The first is the article from Debbie Hager and Anna Pickering of the Prostitutes Collective. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: The second is a document from Gunilla Ekberg of Sweden setting out the Swedish Government’s policy in relation to this matter. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: The third is the poll I mentioned but I should also have mentioned that 75 percent of New Zealanders are against the advertising of commercial sexual services. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.