Coddington Deborah: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4477] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I support this bill not for any health and safety reasons and not for the protection of prostitutes but because it is an issue of individual freedom and personal liberty. This bill is not without its flaws but I believe that we can change that when we have a change of Government. 
I made a deliberate decision not to have a knee-jerk reaction to this bill. Because there is a personal vote on this bill I explored all areas of it just like the member who spoke before me. There were many issues to consider. I had to consider things like whether I want to live in a country where sex is reduced to a mere commodity and let us face it having sex is not the same as just going out to buy a hamburger or to fill the car with petrol. Actually it is already legal to buy sex but if the prostitute knocks on the window of a car when it pulls up at the traffic lights and offers sex for money then he or she is breaking the law and I do not think that is fair. People have asked—and I have asked this myself—whether I would want a son or daughter of mine to be a prostitute. Of course we would not want that. There are a number of jobs though that we would not want our sons and daughters to do but we do not pass laws banning those jobs. 
There has been much lobbying of me by people who have said this bill should not be passed because it is anti-family legislation and will lead to break-ups of families. But there are many things in this society that are anti-family. Extramarital affairs are incredibly destructive of families but do we pass laws to ban extramarital affairs? Research has shown that when people live in de facto relationships the children are at much more risk of the parents breaking up than if the parents are married. I have been in a de facto relationship for 27 years now with four children. Are we to pass laws to force me to get married because research has shown that the relationship I live in is anti-family? 
As I say essentially this bill comes down to an issue of individual liberty and I say people have a right to be wrong. They have a right to make the wrong choices. I personally do find prostitution morally repugnant because it reduces that most private and personal exchange to a mere commercial transaction. But the important thing is that I do not have the right to force my personal or moral views on to anyone else and on to people who are not physically harming anyone. It is not as John Key said the State’s role to legislate for morality. The State is there to protect people’s freedoms and that as I said includes the freedom to fail and the freedom to say and do things that I might find personally abhorrent. But as long as there is no initiation of force it is no business of mine to force other people to obey what I think is my personal credo. If people do not like prostitution they should recognise it is not mandatory. They should look away and I believe they should stop trying to force their personal views on to everybody else.