Barnett Tim: Prostitution Reform Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
Barnett Tim: Prostitution Reform Bill — Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6585] 
TIM BARNETT (NZ Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I move  
That the Prostitution Reform Bill be now read a third time 
. The one thing that all MPs might agree on is that the end of this debate is upon us and that is a relief. It will all have been worthwhile if we agree at about 9 p.m. tonight to remove outdated biased and largely unenforced law which leaves real problems untouched and which nurtures harm and pass the Prostitution Reform Bill into law. 
Having spoken to most members of this House about the issues at the heart of this bill I believe that we have through this debate been asking two questions. The House has already answered question one namely: what law best ensures the well-being of sex workers while responding to community sensitivities? That answer is the bill we have before us today. It may not be perfect for laws rarely are but it is the best this House has produced after 2¾ years of debate. The second core question is a conscience one. Given that there is prostitution in our society should it be governed by law based on disapproval or on acceptance? After 32 months 222 submissions and 415 hours of debate in the Justice and Electoral Committee and the Chamber we are left today with that issue of conscience. Is disapproval of prostitution best expressed by sustaining bad law or do we make the law as good as we can get it? 
There are only three options for each member when he or she votes tonight: “for” “against “ or “abstain”. Those who vote “for” accept that we can do better than the current messy law and that this bill is a workable improvement. Those who vote “against” are saying that the status quo with all its faults many of which have been accepted as such by all sides in this debate is preferable. I say to my fellow members that the questions really are as simple as that. The choice really is as simple as that. The devil does not lie in the detail of this bill; the devil lies in the failure to understand that the choice is straightforward. An essential part of the opposition to this bill has been confusion and a complete misunderstanding of the limitations of a bill. A bill is not a group of social workers out on the streets of my electorate on a Friday night persuading teenage sex workers into a better life. A bill is not a drug addiction programme. Here in Parliament we do what we can by making the law as good and as workable as we can get it—making law that nurtures good social interventions. 
The current law around prostitution was not designed to ensure the well-being of sex workers. It was planned around what I call a “kiwi prohibition”. The physical act itself is legal—possibly because it so hard to define legally—but such varied conduct as running a brothel and procuring anyone for reward to have intercourse with someone a person is not married to are crimes. The State licenses massage parlours knowing that they are fronts for prostitution. The State makes hotel receptionists and care workers for people with disabilities who seek the services of a prostitute for those in their care into criminals. Yet the operator who coerces a sex worker or creates an illegal contract to control his or her workers is not a lawbreaker. There is no morality and no consistency in that. 
So through the heat haze of rhetoric what does the Prostitution Reform Bill actually say? How does it make things better? It is a decriminalisation measure similar to our whole family of public health - related laws. It does not seek to label prostitution as normal but it does accept its inevitability. As Dr Basil Donovan Clinical Professor of Public Health University of Sydney wrote to all MPs this week: “With the sole exceptions of the Cultural Revolution in China and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan the law surrounding prostitution has no effect on its prevalence. Laws seeking to restrict prostitution merely promote corruption brutality and sexually transmitted infections.” 
Having accepted that prostitution is here to stay like it or not the next thing is to identify what problems it generates. There seems to be broad agreement on that. The list includes operators usually men using emotional or physical force to control sex workers; under-18-year-old sex workers being sought by clients; prostitutes being trapped in the sex industry; the absence of any buy-in to common health and safety standards; offensive signage; and brothels being located in sensitive places. The next stage is to work out the best way of controlling those harms. That is harm minimisation. We know that under-age sex is best controlled by stronger law against the client—law that can actually be enforced—and that is what is in this bill; whereas exiting from prostitution is best controlled by a combination of good social policy such as the provision in the bill to minimise benefit stand-down periods to people leaving the sex industry and some great on-the-ground social work projects. The law is then built. The rationale is not rocket science. It has been the basis of our public health law for the past 20 years. 
So what will the world look like under this new law? It will look pretty similar to most of us who do not frequent the sex industry. There will be nothing much in fact except fewer risqué advertising signs as the bill gives local bodies the power to control that signage. Members should remember that what we have here tonight is the best answer we can manage to the question of what law best ensures the well-being of sex workers. And for sex workers the world will change dramatically if this bill passes into law. Key to this will be a transformation of their relationship with the State. At present their relationship is with the police and that is occasional at best unless they are one of the 354 people arrested in the last 5 years for prostitution offences. Under this bill they will be under a public health umbrella. They will have the opportunity for an employment contract the certainty of an Occupational Safety and Health Service code and a safer sex - focused environment to work in. They will have new protection from a stronger law against coercion. Workers aged under 18 will not be criminalised but their clients will face longer sentences than under the current law with less opportunity to successfully defend themselves. 
My belief in this bill has been strengthened by the vitriol and inaccuracy of the opposition to it and even more so by the sight of its enemies attacking it for completely contradictory reasons. When—and this is one of many examples—a member first calls for local bodies to have more controls over brothels in their areas and then when amendments to the bill deliver exactly that complains of it costing local bodies too much money I sense that we are on to a good idea. Some accuse me of seeking to normalise prostitution. I have yet to hear a definition of normalisation that makes any sense in the context of a piece of law. A virtually unpoliced industry where the core act of prostitution is not illegal might be a definition of normal to some people. If the concern is that by taking practical measures to minimise harm we are de facto recognising the sex industry I guess I would have to agree. But if we are tackling harm surely there is no other way? 
 This is the most significant debate in this Parliament on a moral issue since homosexual law reform 17 years ago and for most of us the most significant such debate of our parliamentary careers. Each member here has to live with his or her vote tonight for the rest of his or her life and I know that some in this House have lived uncomfortably ever since with their “No” vote of 17 years ago. What we have before us tonight is a legacy of great parliamentarians and community campaigners who have gone before: Fran Wilde who led the decriminalisation of gay sex; Helen Clark who as Minister of Health funded the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective; Maurice Williamson and Katherine O”Regan who promoted the cause in the National Government in the 1990s; Georgina Beyer who brings her unique personal experience to this House; and Catherine Healy who has been the face of prostitution law reform for two decades. Will 61 members share in that legacy tonight? Will 61 of us vote to remove the last significant vestige of Victorian moral law from the New Zealand statute book? Yes I believe we will.