Page 5489 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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My colleague Dr Kinloch and I take the view that, whilst we should not be running a brothel board as a government and we should never interpose ourselves as condoning and supporting that activity, we should not, as Dr Kinloch says, cast stones. We should not be putting a criminal judgment on those workers, most of whom are women, without punishing the men - if we are going to get into punishment, which we do not accept.
There are some minor issues about Mr Moore's amendments that we are still dissatisfied with, including a provision to deal with the non-use of prophylactics, and a recommendation made at the women's conference I referred to about the need to make it an offence for clients to remove or break a condom during service, as they say. They believe that those are issues that deal with their protection. They are occupational health and safety issues. Their request should be examined properly.
If we are to cast any stones in this, the two reports of Mr Moore's committee on the decriminalisation of marijuana and on prostitution came down after extensive and quite creditable study; but my personal view is that both reports should have come to us a lot earlier so that we could have acted on them. I am sure members will say that they had to do that level of research; but my strong personal view is that the decriminalisation of marijuana, for example, was a foregone conclusion years ago. The committee should have given it to us at a non-vulnerable stage of the sittings, when we had adequate time to consider it and judge community sentiment. They should not have left it as a sententious issue for some people - or at least one person - to exploit.
We believe that Mr Moore's Bill, if he can get it into order, could come back onto the agenda before we rise, or at any further sitting. We commit ourselves to that. Although we support the notion that someone needs to get this into proper working order, we do not necessarily believe that the Community Law Reform Committee is the only place it can go. If there is some way of providing for the necessary working structure to take into account the New South Wales experience, we would listen to it.
We would be very disappointed to hear any suggestions that the Rally is wimping on the issue. We stand on the record of wanting to decriminalise. I trust that the Liberal Party will speak to the issue too and make its position clear so that there is no political opportunism in the debate today.
MRS NOLAN (11.25): Mr Speaker, I cannot let that comment by Mr Collaery on this report go unnoted. As a member of the committee which handed down the report into prostitution - - -
Mr Connolly: In April.
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