Page 5491 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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What he is left with is a Bill that can be further amended but basically accepts what has been the status quo here for probably 15 years. I have a quite good knowledge - I was going to say that I have more knowledge of brothels than most of you people, but that would be taken the wrong way. I speak as someone who used to be in the prosecution section, where a number of briefs would come across from the police to prosecute brothels. Because of the Temby guidelines, many of them were not prosecuted; but I did do what I think was the last successful brothel prosecution in Canberra.
What I see here as a result of Mr Moore's further amendments is a piece of reasonable legislation that protects people from being exploited, protects children, and addresses some of the very important health issues. We have a couple of criticisms of it where we see that it can be further amended to be a better piece of legislation. I think some of his penalties are a little illogical, and accordingly the Liberal Party will be moving a number of amendments, largely in relation to rationalising the penalty structure.
All in all, we do not see any real problems and, indeed, we see, on balance, a positive good if this amended legislation is passed. We see no real reason for it to be fobbed off any further.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.30): I am concerned that words such as "fobbed off", "put on the backburner", and that type of rhetoric are being thrown around in relation to the Government's very sensible and cautious proposal to have a close look at this legislation. We went from last week, with a Bill of 42 clauses providing a regulatory licensing regime, to this week, with a changed Bill of 15 clauses proposing a deregulatory regime. They are fundamentally different.
The arguments Mr Collaery made are very sound ones. He was referring to a lot of the work that has been done at conferences and in research bodies around Australia, looking at these two models and trying to come up with a better model. I do not think this Assembly is going to come up with the best model by taking these sorts of amendments off the floor of the house, and I see no need for us to be rushing into this today.
The Government's intention, if this Bill is adjourned, is to fairly quickly get the Community Law Reform Committee to look at it, not asking the questions "Ought we to change the law on prostitution? Ought we to decriminalise prostitution?", but asking, "What is the best, most practical, most legally and socially sound model for that decriminalisation?". I think that would be a sensible course of action for us to take.
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