Page 5499 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991

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The Rally also drew attention to the fact that they could not possibly condone in any way a provision for prostitution to be restricted to Hume, Fyshwick and Mitchell. He referred to the amendment I have proposed and said - it was very difficult to follow his logic on this one - that the Rally could not support that because in some way it means that the Government condones the fact that there are brothels. I think that was the logic of the argument. If the Rally wanted to vote against this amendment in order to allow brothels to go anywhere in Canberra and were able to win that, then I can accept that. That is not a problem.

The final point Dr Kinloch made was the caring additions to the legislation that he believes should be there. The legislation does not preclude the establishment of any caring additions, whether done by amendment to legislation or added on before. If the Rally wants to lobby for that, that is quite within their power and a quite sensible approach for them to take. What Dr Kinloch seems not to be prepared to do is to empower the women who are in this situation to make their own decisions. If you want to establish something that influences the way they make decisions, I can accept that, provided you leave them with the power to make their own decisions about what they want to do and to act in ways in which they want to act.

Dr Kinloch: I do not disagree with that.

MR MOORE: If you do not disagree with that, the logical thing to do is to support this Bill. It is perfectly logical and it is perfectly reasonable.

Dr Kinloch: There are not those remedial measures in the Bill.

MR MOORE: Dr Kinloch interjects that there are not the remedial measures in the Bill. He is quite correct. There is no doubt about that. There is nothing in the Bill that precludes the remedial measures he is talking about, but the most important of all the remedial measures in helping people is to empower them. I think Mr Collaery would agree with me that the most important thing is to empower people, and that is the sort of argument he has been using on appeals in the Land (Planning and Environment) Bill.

Therefore, it seems to me that the logical thing for the Rally to do is to support this Bill in its current form and then to begin lobbying to get the things that Dr Kinloch wants in place administratively and to begin trying to implement the rest of their policy. Implement the first part of your policy, because you have now the opportunity to do it, and then implement the rest of your policy in due time.


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