Page 4839 - Week 16 - Monday, 25 November 1991
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alarmed, so that the community follows all the way through exactly what is happening, and so that, ultimately, as we do act, the community will support such proposals as this Assembly may bring forward.
MR COLLAERY (4.40): Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that the day has passed when prostitution could be described as the most ancient profession. The fact is that, when you meet with the - - -
Mr Duby: It ought to be lawyers.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Duby believes that that title now belongs to the lawyers. The fact is that, when you meet with the prostitutes collectives these days and their spokespersons, you meet articulate, informed people. They put forward well-researched and well-argued cases.
Some weeks ago, I went to a conference in Sydney which dealt with women and the law. There were representatives of prostitutes collectives there, and one such representative from Victoria was a trained and diplomaed community worker. She was not, as one might think, someone from the sex industry; but she had a very effective style of campaigning for the interests of sex workers in Victoria. In fact, her title was Community Development Officer. I leave you with that title.
At that conference there was an overview, as we have seen at other conferences, of the laws relating to prostitution in Australia and abroad. Mr Moore has alluded to some of the issues. I think it is important that we remind ourselves of just what the term "prostitution" means. I am reminded of a definition given in a decision of an English court that expressed the view that prostitution is proved when it is shown - and this is sexist, of course - that "a woman offers her body for purposes accounting to common lewdness in return for payment", and the expression "common lewdness" was further defined by the courts in England when - - -
Mrs Nolan: The common law has changed a bit, Bernard. There are plenty of men now.
MR COLLAERY: I acknowledged that this definition was sexist. I do not think Mrs Nolan heard me make that remark. That definition has now been extended to refer to - and this is important - a case where a woman offers herself as a participant in a physical act of indecency for the sexual gratification of men. So, in Britain, the law extends to cover the massage-type services that some of us do not construe as prostitution in that context. So, the committee that Mr Moore chairs has had to deal, as Mrs Nolan acknowledges, with some very difficult concepts of common law and the rest.
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