Page 5485 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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victims of this industry. Indeed, if one were condemning, and I do not do this either, one should condemn the men who make use of the victims of this industry.
One also would want to add - and I hope the Law Reform Committee will come to this - that there is need for considerable social reform and rehabilitative reform. As in the suggestions for New South Wales, there would be a rehabilitation board, an attempt to diminish the numbers of people in the industry, so that we can look after public health in a responsible way.
MR MOORE (11.08): The suggestion Mr Connolly made, which is supported at this stage by Dr Kinloch, is nonsense. It is based by Mr Connolly on a premise that these two versions are diametrically opposed. His whole argument followed the fact that these two systems are diametrically opposed. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Connolly is wrong. These are not diametrically opposed, on any possible suggestion.
The basic concept is very simple: One decriminalises prostitution. The debate then comes down to: Should we have a licensing system to ensure that those laws for regulation are kept, or should we allow them to be made in the normal way that laws are made and kept? That is the debate. They are not diametrically opposed at all - not in the slightest. They run parallel to one another.
There is a third system that runs parallel as well, and that is the system Mrs Nolan suggested: If you want to, you can have a Minister for brothels and do it administratively. That is another way of controlling the industry. Those three possibilities are there, and there is only a slight variation between them. Members of the Assembly are quite capable of looking at those three models and making a decision as to which of them is best.
Mr Connolly said that just in the last week we were suddenly trying to rush this through. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Connolly's debating style is very good and he is very convincing. But, like his diametrically opposed concept, nothing could be further from the truth. This legislation has been over two years in the making, with broad community consultation and open for discussion. That Mr Connolly chose not to look at it up until now is one issue; but to suggest that it has suddenly been sprung in any way is simply not true. So, the premises upon which Mr Connolly based his arguments are simply not true.
I urge the Labor Party to reconsider its position and not to delay this Bill, which has been the subject of a great deal of work in the community. We have a series of amendments that simply shift the emphasis from one form of regulatory system to a more standard form of regulatory system, one that applies in a normal way across the commercial world.
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