Page 5496 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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MR KAINE: He may or may not need your vote. We do not know yet, do we? Again, if you are suggesting that he should withdraw his Bill or do nothing in connection with it because he has not got your vote, I would have to say that the Rally does not control the Assembly; it never did, and it certainly does not now.
I am concerned, however, that the Government seeks to work with Mr Collaery to defer this. It is true that this Bill has been on the table for a long time. Mr Moore has done a lot of work. He has gone a long way to accommodating the views of other members of the Assembly. Hence, the legislation he is prepared to put to us today is greatly different from what he originally put forward. I thought this organisation was about trying to reach an agreed position so that we can pass a law.
I have to say that the Government seems to have contributed little to this process. They have sat there; they have done nothing. It is true to say that they are not a reformist government. In fact, I have said many times, and I repeat: This is probably the most conservative government in Australia. It takes no initiatives to change anything, and when other members of the Assembly take initiatives to change things the Government stands in opposition and says, "We are not going to change a darned thing". In other words, the status quo shall obtain.
I know that at the moment they are a little touchy about that because there is an election just around the corner and they do not want to antagonise anybody. Maybe that is a good excuse for not doing anything. But I do not accept that; nor do I accept Mr Collaery's argument. This Bill sets out to decriminalise prostitution.
Mr Collaery: What does it do for the social condition of the workers?
MR KAINE: First of all, this Bill - unless Mr Collaery or somebody is going to amend it - makes the people who work in this industry employees. The minute somebody becomes an employee, that person becomes susceptible to our laws on occupational health and safety. You do not have to have a new Bill to make employees susceptible to those laws. The occupational health and safety legislation is on the table and, when a person becomes an employee in an industry in Canberra, that law begins to apply to him or her. One of the problems at the moment is that these people are not considered to be employees.
Much of Mr Collaery's objection is based on rhetoric and on the simple fact that this is not his Bill and therefore he does not like it. I think we should get on with it, debate it and pass it as quickly as possible, rather than trying to defer it and delay it and, once again, not address the problem.
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