Page 5029 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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But at the same time as we withhold judgment, we must also say to the people who are involved in prostitution, male and female, that although we love them - and that is our obligation - we have an obligation to be their friends in the same way that we are the friends of Jesus. That obligation is to love them as we feel they most need to be loved, not to love them by saying, "Please go ahead. You have not been stoned. You have not been condemned. Keep at it".
The obligation is to do something like Gladstone did. Much fun has been made of the fact that as Gladstone left the House of Commons he walked the streets of London trying to find prostitutes - if you like, pick up prostitutes - to take them home to his wife to try to do what he could for them. I know how difficult what I suggest is. I would not know how to begin to do it. But the Christian obligation is not to parcel people up in some kind of sanitised area and say, "Go for it out there. We will let you do that while the rest of us lead our pure and holy lives".
The obligation is to say to the equivalent of the woman who was not stoned, "We care for you. We want to do what we can for you". I believe that it is the obligation of the churches, all the churches, to do what they can to offer counselling, help, work and whatever they can to bring about some diminution of prostitution wherever it occurs.
I now turn very much more to the arena of the state. In particular, I would ask that we all be aware of the work done by Professor Eileen Byrne, the Professor of Education (Policy Studies) at the University of Queensland. Here I would recognise the move taken by the Queensland Labor Party. I do not want to make political points about this at all. Professor Byrne is the author of a paper entitled "Review of Prostitution-related Laws in Queensland: the Case against the Legalisation or the Decriminalisation of Prostitution".
I have only a short time; but I want to say to everyone here that this is a very powerful case indeed for not decriminalising prostitution, for not licensing brothels, for not producing some kind of sanitised area and saying, "It is not right for us, but it is all right for you". I find Eileen Byrne's recommendations, based on good evidence, persuasive. She worked for many years, certainly over a decade, in prostitution areas in the United Kingdom, especially in London, especially in slum and dockland areas. Some of you may have seen her on the recent Couchman program on prostitution. She has worked through her life with other women on the question of prostitution related laws.
I do not table this paper. I think it is too large a document. I shall provide a copy of it to the library. Anyone who is in any doubt about whether it is useful, proper, intelligent to legalise brothels should first of all look at Professor Byrne's study, her recommendations,
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