Page 1563 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 April 1991
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to illegal drugs activity and the link with prostitution, it will continue to remain a concern. I believe that this issue will be canvassed more fully when the committee tables an interim report on illegal drugs.
The report also contains a detailed chapter in relation to sexual exploitation of young people - a concern, I am sure, for many in our community. I will not discuss this issue in the short time available today, but I would like to bring it to members' attention as it certainly is an issue of major concern to me.
Mr Speaker, it is now appropriate that I discuss the law reform issue, and in particular the differences I have with other members of the committee on the implementation and maintenance of that law. I consider it appropriate that there be only one enactment for the control of prostitution in the ACT. A licensing system does seem to be an appropriate mechanism and, as a consequence, a small advisory body should be set up by the Minister for Health to recommend granting, reissuing, transferring and monitoring licences issued to own or operate a brothel and/or an escort agency.
Licensing, I believe, would be the best means of regulating the operation of brothels and escort agencies to ensure that they remain free of criminal activity and to give the community the public health protection that is so necessary in today's society. It is also the committee's view that a limit on the number of workers in each brothel or escort agency would assist in the health arena. As I said earlier, public health has to be of paramount importance.
Mr Speaker, I do not believe it appropriate for the licensing body to have statutory power. We are talking here about the ACT, and I am conscious of the small size of the prostitution industry in the ACT. It is in that context, as I stated in my additional comments, that we must consider the prostitution industry. I think it is appropriate that I remind members that there are many other boards and committees here in the ACT that do not have statutory power. I think we have to put it all in that sort of context.
We can think of the Tourism Commission. The tourism industry generates over $500m in revenue and employs 8,000 to 10,000 people. Then there is the Taxi Industry Advisory Committee and the Health Promotion Fund, to name but a few. They do not have statutory power. Remember that we are talking about the seven or eight brothels that currently exist in the ACT. There are, in fact, several more escort agencies. I do not believe that the community would support a statutory authority to regulate prostitution.
One of my other concerns, Mr Speaker, is that throughout the report a path of law reform was advocated, as I have already mentioned, to remove discrimination from those in the industry; yet the report recommends that brothel and
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