NZPA?
Thursday, June 26, 2003



Cheers, tears as prostitution bill passes

Parliament erupted in cheers last night, as a landmark law to decriminalise prostitution passed by a single vote.

Christchurch MP Tim Barnett's Prostitution Reform Act will become law next Monday and soliciting for sex and brothelkeeping will no longer be illegal in New Zealand from that day.

In one of the closest votes in Parliament's history, the Act passed 60-59, on the abstention of Labour's Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary.

Had Mr Choudhary, who opposed the bill, not abstained the bill would have fallen because a 60-60 tie is counted as a defeat.

A packed public gallery screamed and cheered as the vote was read out after a tense 10-minute wait. Mr Barnett was mobbed by supporters both in and outside the chamber.

"I think right has won. We have created world-leading law. This is an historic moment. We have completed the unfinished business," a jubilant Mr Barnett told his supporters.

Mr Barnett said he knew the result when ACT MP Heather Roy, who had planned to vote against the bill, walked into the ayes lobby.

"She was the 60th vote."

Key movers included Mr Choudhary, Labour MP Winnie Laban, Ms Roy, and National MP Lockwood Smith.

Prostitutes Collective spokeswoman Catherine Healy thanked the sex workers who had supported a marathon effort to decriminalise prostitution after three years of scrutiny, 415 hours of debate and 222 public submissions.

"I hope there are sex workers out there celebrating tonight as I know they all can," Ms Healy said.

Family Planning Association head Gill Greer said the victory marked the beginning of a new era in prostitution in New Zealand.

"It's going to need a lot of work and a lot of support to change the lot of sex workers in New Zealand," she said.

In the greatest change to New Zealand's sex laws in 100 years, massage parlours will become brothels, and offering sex for money and living off the earnings of a prostitute will become lawful.

Under the new law, brothelkeepers will be subject to health and safety laws and will be required to offer sex workers employment contracts. They will be required to obtain certificates from local courts and may be banned if they hold serious criminal convictions.

Local councils have been handed sweeping new powers to decide where brothels may operate and to control their advertising and signage.

Mr Barnett's bill appeared to be heading for defeat earlier this week, following a sustained attack by opponents which led to the defection of five key National Party MPs.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, a key supporter of the law change who when Minister of Health approved funding for the Prostitutes Collective, made a personal plea to wavering Labour MPs to vote for Mr Barnett's bill.

In an emotionally charged and at times heated debate, reform opponents predicted a rise in organised crime and the degradation of small communities while supporters spoke of new protections for women in an industry characterised by coercion and oppression.

Emotional Labour MP Georgina Beyer, who admitted she burst into tears outside the chamber after her speech, told the House she might have been spared the five years she spent in the sex industry if the bill had been law when she was a teenager.

"I support this bill for all the prostitutes I have known who died before the age of 20 because of a society who in its hypocrisy would not allow them the chance to have their own protection," Ms Beyer said.

"I plead with you in this House who are wavering right up to the wire. This is our one chance in 20 years – please, I beg of you to consider the side I'm on. Please think of the people who may be spared some of the hideous way that society treats us."

In his own final plea before Parliament, Mr Barnett asked MPs to vote to remove "the last significant vestige of Victorian moral law from the New Zealand statute book."

Mr Barnett said the issue was the most significant morale debate in Parliament since homosexual law reform 17 years.

"Each member here has to live with their vote for the rest of their lives. Is disapproval of prostitution best expressed by sustaining bad law or do we make the law as good as we can get it?"

National MP Nick Smith said the law would mean more prostitutes and more harm. He said Mr Barnett was attempting to make sex just another commodity.

"Having sex, Mr Barnett, is not the same as buying a beer or a latte. Sex is special and it should not be for sale."

Dr Smith said ordinary New Zealanders rejected the "anti-family, politically-correct liberal agenda of the Government."

Prostitution was nothing more than paid rape, he said.

United Future MP Larry Baldock said Parliament was passing the cost and responsibility for regulating the sex industry on to local councils.

New Zealand First MP Brent Catchpole predicted a tide of organised crime and said many more women would enter the sex industry under the new law. His colleague, Pita Pareone, said he had seen enough young Maori women ruined by prostitution.

However, Green MP Sue Bradford said the bill aimed to end the very problems opponents were concerned about.

"I have grown entirely sick of the misinformation which has been deliberately circulated in our communities about this bill, making it sound as if the bill itself is causing all these inequities."

ACT MP Stephen Franks said those on both sides of the debate were simply posturing.