Smith Murray: Prostitution Reform Bill — In Committee 
Smith Murray: Prostitution Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5207] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 I believe that this bill is setting a legislative direction that will cause huge harm to New Zealand society. If we are to make reforms in the area of prostitution then there are other areas that are equally worthy for us to make reforms in. With regard to prostitution the arguments in favour of this bill appear to be that firstly men and women are engaged in prostitution and are being exploited by pimps and that therefore by bringing this bill into enactment we will reduce that exploitation. Secondly prostitutes feel trapped in the industry. They feel coerced particularly because the industry is dominated by gangs and also because they have a need for money. 
The third argument is that prostitutes lack self-esteem. All those things inhibit them from leaving the industry. It is thought that passing this bill will make it easier for prostitutes to leave the industry and prostitution will decrease. The fourth argument is that because prostitution is illegal those proposing the bill say that that inhibits prostitutes from seeking help; and again that inhibits them from seeking to exit the industry. 
Fifthly working conditions are poor. Prostitutes do not have the same recourse to occupational safety and health accident compensation and other oversight agencies in order to ensure that their working conditions are at least as good as everybody else’s. The sixth argument is that realistically prosititution will never be stamped out—that it is wasting police resources that we are never going to get rid of prostitution completely so we might as well legitimise it. Seventhly the argument is that it is a victimless offence engaged in through the willing consent of adults and that we should not interfere with that. 
Well prostitution is not the only industry to which those seven factors apply. They apply equally to the homebake industry—to people who are trapped in the industry of manufacturing drugs in home kitchens for the use of other people. If we go through those same points we see that women engaged in the homebake industry are also being exploited by people who are drug dealers and drug pushers. We see that women often feel trapped in that industry by coercion because gangs are involved by their need for money and by their lack of self-esteem. Because the homebake industry is illegal it inhibits such people from seeking help in order to exit from it. The working conditions are poor. Its workers have to work in houses and have no access to occupational safety and health accident compensation or other agencies. Realistically we are never going to be able to stamp out drug dealing and homebake manufacture. That is a waste of police resources. So why some might argue should we continue to make it illegal? 
Some would claim that supplying homebake is a victimless offence; the use of drugs is willingly consented to by adults. Homebake is manufactured and sold to people who willingly use it so maybe the proponents of the Prostitution Reform Bill should now be advocating to us that we legalise its manufacture in order to decriminalise it and so that people involved in homebake are better able to obtain help to get out of the industry. I see the same dangers in that as I do with this—that when as a Parliament we lower the moral standards within our country and accept things that are harmful to individuals and to society there is no end to how low we can go. We as members of a legislature have responsibility for upholding those standards. If we do not do it who will do it? 
Now if we were to decriminalise homebake we would make it easier for people to get help to get out of the industry. We would allow occupational safety and health regulations and hygiene and fire regulations. We would make people less guilty about being involved in homebake. We could put safeguards in place. We could try to stop gangs from owning homebake kitchens. We could license people as Phil Goff wants to do so that people who had committed serious offences could not be involved in the homebake industry. We could put advertising restrictions in place so that the homebake industry could not advertise in suburban areas or near schools. We could make it illegal to procure children to help in the homebake industry or to sell homebake to children. 
Will those patch-up remedies—which are what we are advocating for the Prostitution Reform Bill—remedy the essential problem? Will they lessen the occurrence of homebake and reduce the amount of drugs in our society? Certainly not! Society will change for the worse if we allow this bill. We will have advertising in newspapers on television and over the radio for prostitution and we will see “in your face” signage on buildings.