Yates Dianne: Prostitution Reform Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
Yates Dianne: Prostitution Reform Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
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DIANNE YATES (NZ Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I will be opposing this bill as I have consistently throughout its earlier stages because I think that at the moment the bill is an absolute mess. I will also be opposing it firstly because I come from what I consider to be a feminist perspective that sees prostitution as exploitation and secondly because I have gone out and spoken to many women’s groups—I am a member of many women’s groups—and spoken widely in my electorate. There are 58000 voters in the Hamilton East electorate and of that number of voters only three people in the whole electorate have contacted me—I have solicited opinion—and asked me to vote for the bill. I have had hundreds of telephone calls and emails asking me to vote against it. 
I believe that there are two ways of looking at prostitution through this bill and in this debate. One is that prostitution is a job and if one does regard it as a job then the arguments of people like Sue Bradford are valid. But I do not believe that prostitution is a job; I do not believe that it should be a legitimate job. I have been a schoolteacher for most of my life teaching girls and I have not taught them to seek that type of employment. I believe that those members who are voting for the bill are trying to have a bob both ways with the amendments that have been made to it because it is not prostitution but soliciting that is illegal. Now the amendments are saying yes to prostitution but people cannot have signs and advertising on the television or the radio and brothels can be only in certain places in cities which puts an awful burden on local government. Basically those are Nimby amendments from a bunch of members who say yes to prostitution but not in their backyards or their suburbs and nowhere near their kids thank you very much. Let us hope that they realise that they are trying to have a bob both ways and that it will not wear. 
The other way of looking at prostitution is what New Zealand has signed up to through the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. Article 9 on the trafficking of women—which we have signed up to—states that prostitution is the exploitation of women and we have undertaken to eliminate and get rid of prostitution. I do not believe that this bill will do that. Someone at the back of the Chamber asked about the men. Let us look at what this bill is doing because if we go with its provisions we are saying that prostitution is a job. We are also going against what I believe is Labour policy which used to state that we should get rid of the anomalies around prostitution. The anomalies are still in this bill in that the onus is on the prostitution industry and the women and not on the clients. 
When I said in this House that we should make sure that the clients of prostitutes have a health test and a licence people sniggered. But that is what we are asking of the women and that is what makes this bill not only a Nimby bill but also one that states that what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. The bill still leaves the onus on the women rather than on the clients which is why I promoted the Swedish law. What we find with the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the countries that have signed up to it particularly the European countries is that those countries are working through their commitments under that convention to eliminate prostitution not to legitimise it. 
To those who argue that that approach will only drive prostitution underground I say that by its very nature prostitution is an underground activity. We have heard from prostitutes themselves that most of their clients—75 to 80 percent—are married men. Their clients are not people who would go around and make that public. We live in a welfare state in New Zealand where women should not have to earn their money in that way. If anybody does have to make money in that way as a local MP I invite that person to come and see me. There is such a thing as a benefit system. The states of poverty where people have to earn money through that particular way of life do not exist in this country. 
I thank those women’s organisations—even those that are affiliated to the National Council of Women—that at the branch level have worked to support women and I also thank very much Denise Ritchie of ECPAT Sandra Coney and those people who came from overseas to point out the anomalies in this bill.