Sharples Pita: Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill — Second Reading 
Sharples Pita: Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5663] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 Kia ora tena koe. The location of my electorate office is Hunters Corner the site where the street workers who are targeted in the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill gather. I have seen sex workers whakawahine and trans-gender people going about their business. I have not however succumbed to the practice other MPs in this House have—that is of counting the actual numbers of street girls. The Counties-Manukau police reported a maximum of 21 sex workers on the night of 4 December 2005 but said the average number sighted is under six per night. These statistics are consistent with data held by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. The numbers are however much fewer than in some of the sensational mythology built around this bill. 
I think the dubious numbers game deserves another look. All manner of statistics have been bandied around with wild claims that numbers of sex workers have shot up since the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003—for example an increase of a whopping 400 percent. One explanation could be—as was told to me—that one of the people set up to count numbers of sex workers on the streets was told to return every 15 minutes and do a fresh head count. Well it would seem fairly improbable that the turn-round was so rapid a new team would be out there every quarter of an hour. The Local Government and Environment Committee report highlighted the difficulty of obtaining accurate information. 
The issue of data is particularly relevant in the counting of young people on the street. Such are the numbers of our young population on the street that it would be virtually impossible to distinguish between those who are sex workers those who are full-on street kids and those who are just young people hanging out with their mates as many young people are apt to do today. Older workers particularly the queens have said to me that being Maori when they see Maori kids in the game they are more inclined to kick them off home or at least off the streets rather than see them enter a lifestyle that is less than safe. That is called whanaungatanga—caring for one another. What this bill sets out to do is far from caring; it sets out to control the street life and to institute an unduly harsh and punitive regime for street-based sex workers and for anyone the authorities might deem to be associated with them. 
It is not as if we have not been there before. A study by Sorrenson  
The Maori People and the City of Auckland 
 described the situation in 1863 some 150 years ago when Ngati Whatua had: “to abide by a curfew and wear coloured armbands if entering into the streets during the day.” Sorrenson goes further to note that the King movement was spurred on by the treatment Maori received in Auckland. Speakers at King movement meetings frequently referred to the evils of liquor the prostitution of their women and their ill-treatment in Auckland. One has to wonder whether the next step if this drastic legislation were to get through would be the introduction of coloured armbands and curfews to keep the natives at bay to get them off the streets. 
We in South Auckland know what we are dealing with. We know of the violence the criminality the socio-economic deprivation and the hardship endured within that community. But the answer is not adding another layer of crime and punishment to the mix. This bill would have the effect of bringing criminal charges against young kids and making the lives of vulnerable teenagers even worse. A source of authority in this field is the End Child Prostitution Child Pornography Child Sex Tourism and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT New Zealand) group which has spoken out against the exploitation of children. In a study the group undertook of 47 sex workers who had commenced sexual activity under the age of 18 years 40 percent were Maori. That study reported a high consumption of alcohol and frequent drug taking. Fifty-six percent reported childhood sexual abuse and 79 percent reported that workers were living away from their parents when they first became involved in commercial sexual activity. 
So there are huge opportunities for intervention in many other areas that could benefit from focused policy other than punitive measures based around locking sex workers up for life. Why is the Manukau City Council not looking at comprehensive well-being programmes that deal with the traumatic after-effects of sexual abuse or investing energy into restoring whanaungatanga as a key value in the community so that children want to stay home and want to be with their families? 
We want compassion not conviction; and protection not prosecution. The Prostitution Reform Act gave that. It paved the way for sex workers to perceive the police as those helping them to protect their rights not punishing them for being on the streets. But this bill just adds a new menu of offences to criminalise street workers. The bill sets up a scenario by which prostitutes or their clients could be fined up to $10000 for loitering for the purposes of prostitution. It also sets up powers for the police to such an extent that the police would be able to demand information from people if there were reasonable grounds to believe they had committed an offence. Anyone refusing to give information could be fined $5000. 
In many ways these are the people most on the fringe of our society. And what does this bill do? It targets young people in Manukau as ripe to be prosecuted; it is like the laws prohibiting graffiti. In Manukau the implications of the bill are that these young people will become identified as human litter—as the rubbish the council wants to sweep off the streets just as it seeks to wipe the walls clean of graffiti art. 
In Counties-Manukau I am privileged to be working every week—every week—with the police and about 40 community groups that are creating opportunities for intervention in broken homes in drinking homes in abusive homes and in drug homes and on prostitution issues. My role is simply coordinating and assisting community groups and fostering cooperation amongst them in order to be an effective force in helping change dysfunctional behaviour. These groups need support not a new law discriminating against South Auckland. These are the groups that voluntarily and unselfishly assist in teaching motherhood to many young mothers who have just blundered into motherhood. These are the groups that offer counselling give food and give social advice and skills. These are the groups that are experienced in child abuse and in dealing with it. These are the groups that provide courses for men who have abused their partners. I say: “Open your eyes people. South Aucklanders know what is needed.” They know that major change in their suburbs can happen only by their own involvement. Never mind the persecution of youth who will get caught in this legislation by simply being just “up town”—we need to invest in caring and in healing. 
This Manukau bill seems to be motivated more by declining property values and nuisance factors than civil liberties. The Human Rights Commission has advised the House that the bill is fundamentally flawed and should be withdrawn citing a host of international human rights instruments that would be at risk of being breached by the actions of this bill. 
I remain hopeful that together we in the Manukau community can make a difference to its social and economic environment. I applaud the initiative of the groups working out there on the streets whose members do not count workers as data for the press or categorise clients as fodder for glorified gossip. This House must vote this bill down.