Page 4846 - Week 16 - Monday, 25 November 1991
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I note that a lot of what Mr Moore has included in his draft Bill would tend to cover the current de facto situation and legalise it. Looking through his Bill, we have a number of concerns. I understand that the Residents Rally also has a number of concerns. Just going through his Bill, I noticed a number of things that, certainly, I would suggest he should do differently, particularly in relation to his offences. He seems to have provided for some funny periods of years and some strange amounts for fines which seem to be different from what one normally would find in legislation.
Whilst I would agree with some of them, I think some are a bit unique. For example, I have never before seen a maximum imprisonment term of four months or three years in legislation. In some other areas I would suggest that he might like to increase the imprisonment term, certainly in the area of infected persons. That is certainly a very serious offence and, given that he has gaol provisions in some of his other areas, they should be certainly applied to that offence, because knowingly giving someone AIDS, for example, is almost akin to attempting to murder them, because AIDS can indeed be a death sentence as such. Other States have enacted similar legislation in relation to AIDS and deliberately giving people AIDS. I think it can quite properly be taken up in this type of legislation. So, perhaps some of his disciplinary procedures can be strengthened.
The Assembly had a committee which looked in great detail into prostitution. I understand that Mr Moore's Bill is basically a conglomerate of the views of that committee. He has attempted to put them into his Bill. There was a member of the Liberal Party on that committee, and, whilst I would certainly not agree with Mr Moore in other fields where he has propagated some views - in relation to heroin, for example; I would not agree with him on that - in relation to prostitution, I think a lot of commonsense came out of that committee and that is reflected in his Bill, which basically seeks to legislate for and rationalise what has been the status quo here in the ACT for very many years.
The regulation of prostitution has worked, I think, fairly well in certain parts of Australia, such as Kalgoorlie. It has had its ups and downs, so to speak, in Victoria. I was interested to hear Mr Collaery state how sought after some of the licences are. I could well imagine that because a prostitute can easily earn about $2,000 a week. Of that, $1,000 usually goes to the brothel, I understand, and the other $1,000 can be kept by the prostitute.
It is certainly a great cash in hand industry. Of course, a lot of students are involved in it, and a lot of housewives. It is amazing to see the types of people who are in fact involved in prostitution. It tends to be a cash industry and there is probably a lot of tax evasion as well. I think that, by regulating it, those problems can
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