Page 5036 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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Mr Speaker, the issues presented in this Bill are difficult. As I think Dr Kinloch said, they present a number of moral and administrative problems, and a large number of amendments have been brought forward to deal with some of those problems. Of course, we will have to consider those very carefully. We are getting into extremely difficult territory. We need to be sure that we can draw on the experience of other States in establishing a valid and workable regime in the ACT for the regulation of prostitution.
My party is opposed, as a principle, to excessive intrusion by government into areas of human trade and intercourse, if I might put it in those terms. We therefore would treat an intrusion by government into the regulation of this area with some suspicion. However, we have always acknowledged - and we do so again today - that the regulation of activities toward the protection of health is a particularly important area where that principle has to be put second to other important principles and, in this case, the health of individuals in the community. We see the danger presented by HIV and AIDS as being a very compelling reason to provide for some measure of government control to ensure that there is a retardation of the spread of this pernicious disease. As a result I believe, as I said, that we can broadly support the objects of this Bill.
We will be examining with interest the amendments put forward, but we certainly will not be pretending that these issues are too hard to deal with in the life of this Assembly. We certainly will not be pretending that this needs to be referred to some extra-parliamentary body to resolve in our place. We are the parliament; we have examined this issue over a long period of time; we have within our power, I believe, the means to resolve these outstanding issues and there is no reason why we should not do so in the next few weeks.
MR JENSEN (11.05): Mr Speaker, I wish to speak very briefly and to put a couple of matters on the record. In voting in principle for this Bill, the Rally supports the decriminalisation of prostitution. We are doing this to avoid having stones being cast upon us. However, let me put it firmly and clearly on the record that the Rally does not support the establishment of a brothel and escort agency licensing board or similar organisation. The Rally policy on this issue is quite clear, and for the record I would like to indicate what that policy is. We are prepared to support the following policy:
(1) remove prostitution as far as possible from the ambit of the criminal law while retaining provisions against the exploitation of minors and illegal immigrants; and
(2) attempt to reduce levels of demand for, and recruitment into, prostitution through social welfare reform.
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