Hutchison Paul: Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill — First Reading 
Hutchison Paul: Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:666;Page:13794] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill. I congratulate the Hon George Hawkins on sponsoring the bill on behalf of the Manukau City Council. I believe the council requested he do so and as a good local member and an aspirant member of the new local council he has done so. We wish him well in the forthcoming elections. The aim of this bill is to stop prostitution in specified places throughout Manukau City. I note that the 2008 review of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 concluded that most territorial authorities had no problems with the sex industry in their districts and had received few complaints about it. 
However that is not so in Manukau City and in Christchurch and we have heard some fairly explicit descriptions of what goes on in Manukau City and around that area. There is no doubt that it is pretty awful. The council tried to have a bill introduced in 2005 to bring attention to the problem and to impose a complete ban on street prostitution in Manukau but it was defeated. Following efforts by councillors to make suggestions this bill is the result. I think the Hon George Hawkins agrees that it is far from perfect but indeed I support this bill. I think the situation is very serious and it is worthy of referral to the Local Government and Environment Committee for detailed discussion to see whether something useful can come from it. 
A variety of difficulties with this bill have been pointed out. The first one is that once we ban street prostitution from one area like Hunters Corner the prostitutes will go elsewhere and we could keep passing by-laws until the area is more or less covered. Another thing is that the police are concerned that prostitutes will become wary of the extra policing lighting and all the rest and the police may have to bring in undercover agents. Through this bill the police have the power to arrest on suspicion and to impose fines up to a value of $2000. But clearly this could be a merry-go-round. I note that the Prostitutes Collective is against this bill because its view is it is very important that if prostitutes are to carry out their profession in the streets they should not have to move to less safe places that are dimly lit where all sorts of problems can occur. 
It is worthwhile pointing out the aims of the original Prostitution Reform Act of 2003. They were to decriminalise prostitution although not endorsing or normally sanctioning prostitution or its use; to create a framework to safeguard the human rights of sex workers and to protect them from exploitation; to promote the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers; to contribute to public health; and to prohibit the use in prostitution of persons under the age of 18. I think most of those aims were very very important and the review suggested that most of those aims were being fulfilled. There is no doubt that safe sex and diminishing the problems of infectious disease and sexually transmitted disease was one issue that was very important to improve in New Zealand at that time. In this issue of prostitution in Manukau City there is what has been described as a variety of unsavoury debris—needles used condoms vomit and urine—found close to schools and places of work which has to be cleared up day after day. 
There are also under-age sex workers. I was very concerned when I heard the Hon Maurice Williamson point out that when he went around these areas with some of the councillors and expressed his concern about young women who were clearly under age being with the older prostitutes one of them came up to him and said: “Look you’ve got to realise that these young women are here they are under our protection they are being fed and they are given money. If they were at home they would be beaten up they would be raped by their parents and their life would be made even worse.” I think this describes the huge difficulty of this whole problem. Certainly during the debate on the 2003 bill under-age sex—prostitutes going from legalised situations to illegal ones—was one of the big difficulties predicted at that time. Here in Manukau City we have the problem of it happening overtly night after night. 
This bill will give only a limited amount of assistance to what is occurring very explicitly. It does not solve the wider problem of illegal prostitution and particularly under-age prostitution. They need to be addressed in a systematic and very careful manner as outlined in the review of the 2003 Act. Nevertheless this bill has arisen because of a repeated problem in a specific part of New Zealand. I agree it is worthy of being supported to the select committee and I congratulate once again the Hon George Hawkins on his sponsorship of this bill. Thank you. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The remaining calls will be of 5 minutes’ duration. There will be a bell at 4 minutes.