Page 1561 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 April 1991
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recommended, therefore, that those records be destroyed. In order that the Assembly be satisfied that they have been destroyed, we have also recommended that the Chief Police Officer for the ACT actually assure the Minister, and through him, the Assembly, that those records have been destroyed.
We have dealt with taxation and immigration issues and have attempted to clarify them. It is certainly inappropriate for illegal aliens to be working as prostitutes anywhere in Australia, but in particular in the ACT, because it is our area. One of the major overriding reasons for that is that we are aware that prostitution in South East Asia in particular has been a major conduit for the spread of HIV, and we certainly do not want that to continue here.
I briefly mentioned street prostitution before. It does not exist in the ACT, to the best evidence that we can find, unless somebody can provide better information for me. We believe that the community wishes that situation to continue. We have recommended a quite heavy fine for street prostitution so that it will continue as a non-issue for the ACT.
We have dealt with young people. Many of the submissions that were presented to us suggested that prostitution goes on amongst young people, particularly street children. We have distinguished between that sort of sexual activity - it really is sexual exploitation - and prostitution, which is a formal exchange of money for a sexual service. At the same time, we have considered it appropriate to recommend as a serious offence any attempt to procure young people for prostitution, and we have defined young people in the only sensible way - as people who are not yet adults, who have not reached the age of 18.
In conclusion, Mr Speaker, I believe that the report speaks for itself. The 90 recommendations are detailed in such a way that the decriminalisation and regulation of prostitution can be handled in a very positive way in our society. We have drawn particular evidence from Victoria where they have attempted a similar thing. We believe that they have not done well because of the nature of the regulation and because of the nature of the relationship between the State Government and the councils on planning issues. I believe that in recommending that no brothel be larger than having 40 workers we will overcome many of the problems associated with the legalisation of prostitution in Victoria. We recognised those problems and that was why we decided to go down the road of decriminalisation and then regulation. Mr Speaker, I would welcome the comments of my colleagues who worked so hard on this report.
MRS NOLAN (3.59): Mr Speaker, in speaking today on the interim report on "Prostitution in the ACT" I will, at the outset, make some general comments and then I specifically want to address the one area in the report where I was not in agreement with the other committee members.
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