Brown Peter: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
Brown Peter: Prostitution Reform Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee 
[Volume:607;Page:4483] 
PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I must offer my sincere compliments to the member who has just resumed her seat. I know that in the first instance she voted for this bill to go to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I know that she served on the select committee and she sat there and listened intently with an open mind. She has put the case against this bill far more eloquently than I could do and I compliment her on that. 
We have heard speakers here tonight suggest that prostitution is not a victimless crime. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wherever prostitution has been liberalised in this world the industry has expanded. There is plenty of evidence if people want to go and search it out and I invite my friend John Key to do so. The Internet is full of information. Young women in particular have been coerced and enticed into prostitution against their will. We have heard of the vulnerable people who have gone into the industry some willingly some not so willingly but there are many many young women in the world today in countries where prostitution has been liberalised who are in the industry because they are victims of a crime. That is what we have. 
I have heard people say that they will support this bill but do not want their daughters involved. Let me tell the people here that their daughters will not come home and tell mum and dad that they are now prostitutes and ask them to agree. They will not tell their parents. I have seen them on ships by the hundreds in this country—probably schoolgirls earning money by selling their bodies because they have been to some degree enticed on to ships to sell such wares. 
Wherever in the world this industry has been liberalised the industry has expanded. John Key thinks that there cannot be any more and he has made some rather frivolous calculations to illustrate his point. I tell Mr Key that wherever prostitution has been liberalised it has expanded rapidly. We can expect it to be a front for more drug abuse. We had people come across from Australia to face the select committee and also to tell us privately although very few MPs turned up to hear them. They gave us details and showed a video showing some of the events in Sydney. 
We have a confused support basis over there. Mr Barnett wants this bill based on Sydney on New South Wales laws. Phil Goff wants to move to Victorian laws. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: That’s nonsense. 
PETER BROWN 
: It is not. Mr Goff’s amendments take us down the Victorian path. He is legalising it and licensing it. That is what Victoria has done and it is a long way from what they do in Sydney and New South Wales. Dianne Yates wants to move to the Swedish law. She wants an amendment to base this legislation on the Swedish law. New Zealand First would support the Swedish law and I would certainly support it. But her amendment will not do it. I believe she has serious and willing intent to achieve that but her amendment will not do it. If it is passed tonight it will just send a confusing message. 
Progress reported.