Alexander Marc: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Alexander Marc: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4458] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I suggest that the bill before us should be called the “Prostitution Perform Bill” because those who believe that prostitutes are nothing more than free agents exercising their right to sell their bodies in a free-market transaction could not be more wrong about that. Instead of liberating sex workers this legislation will expand their opportunities in a crime-infested industry. The bill could easily have been called the “Politically Erect Women’s Career Degradation Bill”. Let us not be naive. One cannot separate drugs violence servitude and crime from prostitution simply by legalising prostitution. The result of passing this legislation will be an expansion of the sex trade and new opportunities for drugs and violence as well. Police monitoring and enforcement will become increasingly difficult—certainly more onerous and in all likelihood futile. Decriminalisation of prostitution will mean that brothels could and would be lawfully established in our suburbs and our communities with scant regard to the wishes of those communities. How do we expect to restrict the proliferation of brothels under this legislation? The rampant drug usage within the sex industry will end up with more locations to operate from—or is this just the first step towards the decriminalisation of the drug industry as well? Why do we not call this bill the “Anti-democratic and Ethically Challenged Bill”? 
Why do 8000 prostitutes have the right to foist their interests on the rest of us and to gain legitimacy over us in spite of our views? If their case is as compelling as that then at least let us have a referendum. Let us hear the wisdom and common sense of our fellow Kiwis who do not believe Mr Barnett’s claim that prostitution is an idea whose time has come. Its time has not come. Overseas experience shows that decriminalisation encourages more women into prostitution and without the fear of prosecution there will be increased competition greater control by gangs more pimping and an even greater risk of violence intimidation and female abuse. 
We could even call this bill the “Prostitution (Business Protection) Bill” because Mr Barnett does not simply want to decriminalise prostitution but wants the industry to have the status of a preferred business. He has dismissed suggestions that brothels be licensed because that would in his words “push smaller owners behind closed doors” and because prostitutes would be penalised by having to—again in his words—“face the same costs as large brothels to process applications”. So in complete contradiction to the practice of all other legitimate businesses that would welcome similar reductions in compliance costs Mr Barnett wants prostitution to have a preferred status. 
If the bill passes there will be a widening job market for women; that is for sure. They will be able to choose occupations ranging from Prime Minister to prostitute as legitimate jobs—from serving the people to being served up. The truth is that the push for decriminalisation the removal of the legal consequences of prostitution is only a hop away from ethical approval of prostitution. Where is our vision when we push to legislate for a legal tolerance of prostitution? That is nothing more than political correctness dressed up in a whore’s skirt and hoisted above the ethical Plimsoll line. Decriminalisation would be a victory of stupidity over common sense a damning indictment of the place in which we hold women in our society and a pathway of ethical bankruptcy for future generations. 
This bill should not be called the Prostitution Reform Bill because it reforms nothing. It is the “Prostitutes Perform Bill” in intent and effect. This bill is not the answer because when society makes an activity unpunishable by law that inevitably makes that activity acceptable. The supporters of this bill claim it will stop child prostitution but that is already illegal. Decriminalising the sex trade for those over 18 will do for underage prostitutes what lowering the drinking age has done for underage drinkers. Women did not demand the right to vote only to have their true worth denied and their status undermined through being seen as purchasable sex objects. How did we get to such a ridiculous state where valiant women have fought for the right to stand on their feet only to be rewarded with the right to be on their backs? This is not a reform bill it is a “perform” bill that crushes a woman’s spirit. 
I tell members to look to their children and to see their ethical inheritance. Neither the author of this bill nor its supporters in this Chamber who are attempting to pass this legislation will be there to pick up the pieces. They will deliver their vote and walk away and those of us who give a damn will be left to clean up after them.