Page 3188 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 November 1992
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Clause 12
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (12.12): I move:
Page 4, line 21, omit the clause, substitute the following clauses:
Infected persons
"12. The operator of a brothel or escort agency shall take reasonable steps to ensure that a prostitute does not provide commercial sexual services at the brothel or from the escort agency if the prostitute is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
Penalty:
(a) in the case of a natural person - $10,000 or imprisonment for 12 months;
(b) in the case of a corporation - $50,000.
Knowingly infecting
"12A. A person shall not, at a brothel or elsewhere, provide or receive commercial sexual services if the person knows, or could reasonably be expected to know, that he or she is infected with a sexually transmitted disease.
Penalty: $5,000 or imprisonment for 6 months.".
This relates to infected persons. This amendment substitutes a provision placing an obligation on brothel and escort agency operators to take reasonable steps to ensure that staff do not work if they are infected with an STD. The proposed new clause 12A makes it an offence for prostitutes and/or clients to provide or receive commercial sexual services if they know, or should know, that they are infected with an STD. The penalty is $5,000 or six months' imprisonment. This has been referred to, in working discussions, as the Charlene provision. There was a notorious case in Sydney a year or so ago of a person working in the sex industry who was infected with HIV and it appeared that the law could do nothing to prevent that person working. These provisions would mean that it would be an offence for the brothel owner to allow that person to provide commercial sexual services and for that person to so provide services.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
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