Page 5039 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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A number of members, most recently Mr Jensen, raised concerns about the establishment of the licensing board. The committee concluded that the best way to exercise control over prostitution was by regulatory means. It can take three forms. The first is direct ministerial control. That was the course favoured by Mrs Nolan, in her additional comments to the committee's report. Direct ministerial control, as proposed in the amendments by Mrs Nolan circulated this morning, would make Mr Berry, as Minister for Health, also Minister for Brothels. I think that being known as the "Minister for Brothels" is hardly something that any Minister would take to. Under Mrs Nolan's amendments he would probably be known as "Minister for Brothels and Escort Agencies".
The Minister who took this responsibility would certainly very soon be known as the Minister for Brothels. I really do not think that that suits anybody at all, and I would speak strongly against direct ministerial control. However, I do accept, as Mrs Nolan wrote in her additional comments to the report, that the licensing body that has been proposed would have a minimal amount of work.
Self-regulation, I gather, is Mr Collaery's option. Certainly, in our discussion, that is what he put to us. It seems to me that the self-regulation of prostitution has very little chance of working. More importantly, it would fail to do the very thing that we set out to do, and that is to protect the rights and the health of workers. I know that anybody who has looked at this issue very closely, as indeed we have, would agree that the power is much more with the brothel owners than it is with the workers.
Therefore, self-regulation really needs rethinking. It has been agreed that this debate will be adjourned. I will be delighted to have the opportunity to discuss with members what that will mean in terms of the dynamics of the relationship between the prostitutes and the brothel owners that was clearly demonstrated through the way we have been lobbied.
I think it is very important for members to understand that an arm's length licensing board as recommended by the majority of the committee is an option that has been recommended by every committee of inquiry into prostitution since Marcia Neaves' Victorian report in 1985. It was recommended by a New South Wales report in 1986, a Western Australian report in 1990 and the report of Queensland's Criminal Justice Commission this year. Every single one of those reports has recommended an arm's length licensing body. I would urge members to reconsider their position on this. The other options are fraught with problems. The committee spent so much time on it and took into account the views of various law reform bodies around Australia.
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