Page 4855 - Week 16 - Monday, 25 November 1991
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There is a range of behaviour which may be regarded by most, but not all, as a breach of morality by our personal standards, but which is generally condoned because not legally forbidden. A casual regard for truth or habitual lying at the personal level; a generally light-fingered approach to the possessions of others; attempting to defraud the tax authorities but to stay "technically within the law"; obtaining promotion by unfair institutional politics at the direct and unfair expense of others; and so on. These practices are not regarded as desirable by most people, who would describe them as either generally immoral or unprincipled. But they lie in the arena of a public benchmark of morality from which private individuals may diverge. There is community pressure implicitly to regard them as unprincipled, but no legal penalty.
Professor Byrne says:
We are being asked to move prostitution from the first category to this fourth. Succeeding sections set out why this would be wrong. Organised prostitution should remain in the first category as an immoral and criminal activity.
We often hear, as we have heard in the pornography debate, "You cannot really get rid of something, so we should legitimise it; we should license it; we should control it". Yet we see the example of prostitution in Victoria, where these activities have not worked. It is suggested that there are major differences between legalisation and decriminalisation; yet I suggest that there is no major difference because both give prostitution a stamp of approval by the government.
There are many ways in which prostitution and brothels could be handled under the law. Much concern has been shown because of police corruption in the area of prostitution. Indeed, the Fitzgerald inquiry has shown that that is the case. However, the suggestion that legalised brothels, or decriminalised brothels, would have no opportunity for the same problem is ridiculous. Who would suggest that police, who are selected for their honesty and for their standing in the community, would be less likely to be bribed than inspectors, who do not have such a high standard of criteria in their selection?
We all know that brothels are advertised in Canberra and other places under the euphemisms of "escort agencies", "massage parlours" and so on. Yet nothing has been done to handle the advertising of prostitution under those terms, even though it is well known that those terms are being used. The situation in Australia is that the law has not been used to carry out an organised, if you like, attempt to reduce prostitution. Let us look at why prostitution should be reduced.
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