Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill

Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) Link to this

I move, That the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill be now read a second time. Mr Assistant Speaker, you will know, as indeed I do, that street prostitution has been a problem for a long while in the communities of Papatoetoe and Manurewa, and that the council has been frustrated by this. The public are frustrated; so are shop owners who find used condoms in their doorways in the morning. It is a problem that has upset both communities, and Sir Barry Curtis has worked closely with you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and me over many years.

The Local Government and Environment Committee received 121 submissions and heard 45 of them. I have read the commentary on the bill, and the conclusion section is very interesting. It states: “We are concerned about the increasing amount of antisocial behaviour apparently occurring in New Zealand’s urban areas, to which this bill appears in part to be a reaction, and we have sympathy with the local concerns expressed by Manukau City Council. We acknowledge that the problems described in Manukau may have national implications, especially given the possible connections between street prostitution and crimes such as domestic violence, child abuse, and gang-related crimes. However, the majority of the committee does not believe that having a local law different from the national law in respect of prostitution is workable.”

That statement, of course, is not what Manukau City wanted to hear. Sir Barry Curtis wrote to me, and to others, on 11 September, after receiving the report. He stated: “Manukau City Council is disappointed to note that the Local Government and Environment Select Committee has recommended that the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill not be passed at its second reading. The committee rightly acknowledges the council and community have real concerns that need addressing about the activity of sex workers on the street, but it does not believe the bill is the answer. The council disputes this. The committee suggests that local legislation is inappropriate, because citizens would be subject to conflicting laws, depending on their current geographical location. But, in fact, that is already the case with differing bylaws that apply from district to district.”

Sir Barry Curtis’ letter went further: “The committee suggests that the bill amends the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 within the boundaries for Manukau City, and that this is undesirable from a public policy point of view. In fact, the bill is in keeping with the spirit and principles of the Act and seeks only to limit one form of prostitution that is seen to be creating particular difficulties within the district. This is a local district issue within Manukau involving local communities. It is not likely to create a precedent of any kind.”

He further states: “The suggestion that the potential fine of $10,000 will, in fact, be an incentive to continue working on the streets is inaccurate. If these people are fined $10,000, one’s got to ask where are they going to find the $10,000.”

I think that that does show there is a real problem there. However, after the council put that forward, I think it realised that the measure was perhaps extreme.

The suggestion that safe-house brothels and tolerance zones are successful initiatives is disputed by the council. Research indicates that tolerance zones in the Netherlands are implemented in conjunction with strict enforcement of laws to prohibit street prostitution outside of these areas.

Manukau as a council obviously spent some time researching this matter. It was not just a quick response to a problem. This problem has been going on for years. I think the council really was asking its local members of Parliament to bring the bill to Parliament so that it could be discussed. The reality is that street prostitution is frustrating for those people. It happens usually late at night, unseen by the majority of people in the community. It attracts undesirables. Not only does it attract clients who kerbcrawl but also it attracts another element of people who vandalise the shops where it takes place. It is a most unpleasant activity, and, of course, the council has the job of trying to make sure the town areas where this happens are cleaned up before the shops open. Schools have had to get their caretaker go around and check that used condoms are not in the school-grounds, before the start of school.

However, the House moved a great deal in 2003 when it passed new laws about prostitution. Most councils are finding this very workable. But Christchurch, Auckland City, and Manukau have had problems. Indeed, Christchurch and Auckland have been taken to the High Court over the restrictive way the provisions have been presented.

The conclusion in the commentary further states: “Irrespective of the outcome of this proposed legislation, we urge Manukau City Council to continue to work with support from central government on local solutions that develop from consultation with all parties affected by street prostitution. The majority believe that initiatives supported by the local community, sex workers and their advocates, outreach workers, social agencies, and the police are a more effective and appropriate use of resources than the proposed legislated solution.” The commentary includes a minority report from the National Party. I dare say we will hear from National a little later on.

Whatever happens with this bill this evening, I think the problem will not just go away. If we pass this second reading, and then eventually pass the bill, a $10,000 fine will not work. We have heard a lot of emotive argument about schoolgirls on the streets. Well, we have people in their twenties wearing school uniforms on the street, as a marketing ploy. Some people have tried to exaggerate the problem, but let no one make the mistake that for the communities of Papatoetoe and Manurewa it is a real problem. The council has been unable to solve it, itself.

I ask people to think carefully before they vote tonight. They should think about the law that was passed in 2003. We do not want to see that undermined. But they should also think of the problem that the Manukau City Council and the residents of Manukau have. I urge people to think carefully before casting their vote.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) Link to this

I would like to thank the previous speaker, the Hon George Hawkins, for bringing forward this bill and for having the courage in his caucus to do so. This bill is not perfect, but I say to the House that I commend the bill because it is a cry for help. The people of Papatoetoe, Manurewa, and Ōtara—and I will say specifically the three main areas of Hunters Corner, Papatoetoe, Ōtara Town Centre, Ōtara, and Great South Road, Manurewa—are generally poor. They are people who do not get a lot of choices in life. They do not get a lot of choices about where they live, what they can pay, and they do not earn a lot of money. If they earned a lot of money they would not live there. They do not have choices. When their neighbourhood is defiled in the way that it is, they do not have the choice as to whether they leave, because they are poor people. They do not have that choice.

It is all very well for us here, working in our jobs in Wellington or living in our homes, which by the way are not in Hunters Corner, Ōtara Town Centre, or Great South Road, Manurewa, to be able to say: “Oh well, they are exaggerating. Oh well, it’s not really that bad.” Well, it is that bad. Unlike many of the people on the Local Government and Environment Committee I have been to see what has been going on there. I have been there at night, with the police, to see what has been going on, and I do know this: the people who are walking their trade, parading their trade, around those corners are not people who feel they have much by way of choice in life. They are people who need help. They are certainly not people whom we should be encouraging to keep on with that activity. Those people need help.

I am appalled to see that the police have said they do not want this law to come in. The reason they have said it is that they do not have enough police to do what they are doing now in Counties-Manukau. We know that. I brought a petition to this House, asking for more police for Counties-Manukau because Counties-Manukau, which of course includes Hunters Corner, Papatoetoe, Ōtara, and Manurewa, has the worst policing to population ratios anywhere in the country. We have the worst situations to deal with, and we get no help from central government—nothing more than the bare minimum. For the select committee to tell the Manukau City Council, and its brave Mayor Sir Barry Curtis, that it is supposed to work with central government, somehow, to find local solutions is a load of claptrap. I have never heard such nonsense in my life. This is the attempt by the council to work with central government to find local solutions. It has given us its local solution. It may not be perfect, but the select committee should have changed it. The council could have come along to the select committee, and, at that stage, the bill could have been made perfect. But this is its attempt.

When the prostitution law reform was passed in 2003 it was dumped on local councils, with no funding available to help them, no way for them to be able to stop what is happening, and no attempt at all made to give the councils the power they are supposed to be exercising. The council is beside itself. I should declare an interest, as a ratepayer of Manukau City—as are many other people in this House. Frankly, we are sick of paying for the nonsense that comes out of Wellington. It is all very well to have these laws in Wellington, to say: “Oh, it works here in Wellington City.” But we in Counties-Manukau are not central Wellington; we are not Wellington City. A lot of our people do not get choice. They are not the people who decide whether there is too much graffiti here, or there are too many used condoms being thrown over the wall of their house. Nobody gets that choice. These people have been crying out for something to happen.

I wonder what will happen with Labour members tonight. Will they block vote, as they normally do on these matters, against this bill, yet leave those people in South Auckland who voted for them just to wallow in it, and say: “Too bad! You don’t get a choice.”? Well, they have a choice, because they can start looking at who votes for this bill and who does not, and they can start putting their tick in the right box. Frankly, this bill is a cry for help and it is our duty in Parliament to listen to it. This is not just a Counties-Manukau cause, as has been rightly said by the previous speaker. It is central Christchurch and it is central Auckland. But can I say that Counties-Manukau has the worst statistics in just about everything. We might have some of the better MPs, certainly on this side of the House, but we certainly do not have the good statistics on anything else. What we have is a Government that has washed its hands of this, and that for some reason is saying: “Oh well, we don’t want to know about this because it might be difficult. We might criminalise people.” This is not about criminalising people. This is about trying to get some people some help.

I have seen kids wandering around, prostituting themselves at those places. No wonder there are so many murders in South Auckland, around these areas. No wonder there is so much crime. These are kids of 13, 14, and 15 years of age who are prostituting themselves because they owe P debts to the local gangs, and they are sent out to work by the gangs. I heard this nonsense from the Prostitutes Collective, saying that there is no evidence of gang activity in prostitution. Oh for goodness’ sake! Where do they hang out, these people? They certainly do not hang out in Auckland or Counties-Manukau. What they should do is have a look at the Triad activity that has been happening on the North Shore and elsewhere in Auckland. Look at what has been going on. Yes, it has happened. There are gangs running strings of young girls and boys around the Counties-Manukau area.

If we do not help Manukau City to deal with this situation, it will simply say: “Look, enough is enough.” Ratepayers will end up having to pay for private security firms. Even then, what can they do? It is a public place and it is legal. What will we say to the businesses that operate from there? Imagine how hard it is for businesses to set up in a place like Hunters Corner in Papatoetoe. They know that when they come in on a Monday morning they will find used condoms, faeces, and all sorts of things thrown on their walls and in their car-parks. Imagine what it is like for them. What is the choice they make—when they do have a choice about where to set up a business? They say that they will go somewhere else. They will go to a better part of town. So that whole area very quickly goes further and further down. Who misses out? It is the poor, poor people who have no choice. They do not have the opportunity to say: “Oh well, I think this area is going a bit downhill. I think I will go somewhere else.” They do not get that choice. They are not the people of Herne Bay. They are not the people of central Wellington. They are not even the people of Mount Albert. They are the people of Counties-Manukau, and it is about time we gave them a bit of the power that we keep telling everyone we are going to give them.

We have given the councils the power of general competence. Let us just give them the power to do something about this. [Interruption] Yes, they did. Let us just give them some reason to have some faith in central government to back them, instead of constantly attacking them and making it harder and harder for them to represent the ratepayers of Counties-Manukau.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) Link to this

I am pleased to take a turn on the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill because I chaired the Local Government and Environment Committee. I will not be speaking rhetoric such as that from the member opposite, Judith Collins, who, I note, withdrew her party from the ministerial task force on family violence. A lot of rhetoric is coming from the Opposition. The Local Government and Environment Committee that I chaired worked very well on this bill. We take local bills very seriously. Every party on the select committee voted unanimously against this well-intended but very flawed bill. The member opposite is carping on. She is a lawyer; I will point out why this is legislatively a flawed piece of legislation.

We took this bill seriously because we know about the limitations of local bills and the impact when a local authority comes to the House to ask for support for a local issue of some concern. None of us on the select committee—not one member—condoned prostitution, but some of us pragmatically accepted that this trade exists now and needs to be both managed and supported, from both a community safety and a public health perspective.

We heard a lot of anecdotal evidence, particularly about the numbers of young people entering prostitution. We heard widely ranging figures, from those saying that there has been a four-hundredfold increase in prostitution in Manukau, to others saying that this simply is not true. The police themselves have received reports that there are about 150 street workers in Manukau. We want to be very careful about some of the emotion and anecdote we heard at the select committee. We were really worried about that.

We were also concerned about some of the evidence we heard about young people. None of us—and we also heard this during the debate on the Prostitution Reform Act—wanted young people to enter into prostitution as a profession. We accepted that there is very negative behaviour associated with street work—such as littering, noise, nuisance, and some public safety elements—but the fundamental mechanism proposed in this bill to try to fix this is a very, very flawed process that will not produce the desired effects.

Members in the House from Manurewa and Manukau can stand up and vote in support of this bill—and I am sure that they will, just to show that they are supporting the local council—but that will not solve the problems for Papatoetoe, Manurewa, the Auckland City Council, Wellington, or anywhere else. This bill will solve the issues only for Manukau. That is not the way to go forward on national solutions, and other options need to be explored. The Prostitution Reform Act—let us remind ourselves—decriminalised soliciting in 2003. Allowing a local Act, which this would be, to amend public statute sets a very significant and undesirable precedent. That is what the member opposite, as a lawyer, knows, but she likes the rhetoric that shows a fundamental approach to moral issues, and it is quite a horrible sight.

Prohibition of under-18-year-old prostitutes exists now in the Prostitution Reform Act. Yes, we may be seeing some younger people entering into the profession. None of us on the select committee liked to see that; neither does the Prostitutes Collective. It would rather work with those young people to get them out of the profession—that is the best way to go about it.

I want to mention the offence provisions in this bill. I think some of the offence provisions proposed actually breach the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which New Zealand is an international signatory to. There is a $10,000 fine for soliciting on the streets or loitering. This is a terribly perverse incentive—it actually drives young people to prostitute themselves for money to pay the $10,000 fine—and is fundamentally flawed. Another flaw is the $5,000 fine for refusing to give information to the police. This actually breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. It is very, very difficult for police to link causality to the information they receive. So, again, the bill is fundamentally flawed.

We propose that other legislative options could be enacted, such as the Summary Offences Act, the Litter Act, or the district plans of local authorities. The district plan of the Manukau local authority excluded home-based brothels. In other words, it drove prostitutes into soliciting on the street and street prostitution. If the local authority just looked at the tools it has now, it could manage the growth in the prostitution industry. Strategies such as those of the council in Wellington—and I am sure Mark Blumsky, a very reasonable member on this select committee, will mention them—show that when we have eyes and ears out on the street, we actually manage issues like loitering, soliciting, and the issues mentioned in this bill. The use of halfway houses such as those in California is another option that needs to be looked at nationally. In Onehunga, there is Awhina Taina, which supports young girls—those of about 17 years old—who enter into prostitution.

The select committee members looked at all of these options and put them, reasonably, back in our report. We knew that the council members would say: “This is dreadful—oh, woe is me. The Government is not listening!”. Well, we are listening. This Government set up the Prostitution Law Review Committee. There are 11 people on this committee looking at the impact of the Prostitution Reform Act and they will be reporting back to Parliament. That is the mechanism that needs to be utilised to address the issues of every local authority around the country—not to fix it for Manukau and to heck with the rest of the country.

This bill is a clumsy and parochial approach to cleaning up prostitution, even if it was well intended. It stigmatises prostitution. It tips its hat, again, at the buyers of prostitution—the Women’s Health Collective and the Māori Wardens Association told us that. There are other approaches that we, as a Labour Government, feel are far stronger: acknowledge the reality of street-based prostitution; include sex workers in finding solutions; maintain care and protection of street workers; work collaboratively—do not withdraw from a collaborative approach—with the police, local authorities, the Māori Wardens Association, and the Prostitutes Collective; and also consider safe housing. These people do not want to be having sex on the street or in alleyways; they would actually prefer their trade to be done in a safe location. A local bill mechanism will not moderate behaviour—the Law Society told us that. It told us that this is a fundamentally flawed bill that should be voted down.

I end by saying that a new puritan age is darkening our doors, to quote John Mortimer QC. This Labour Government’s door is open to look at approaches that will ameliorate the negative and unintended impacts of the Prostitution Reform Act. That is the way to go, and that is why we will vote down this bill.

JOHN CARTER (National—Northland) Link to this

I speak in support of this legislation, and there are a number of reasons why. But I want first of all to correct one statement that the previous speaker, Steve Chadwick, made, because it is important to correct it. She made a comment that we on the Local Government and Environment Committee work well together, and that is true. We are actually not a bad team. Generally—it depends on the circumstances—we leave our politics outside the door and we get on and do the work that one would expect of a select committee. Occasionally, of course, when issues become political, we become politicians. The member Steve Chadwick suggested that we had voted, as a committee, unanimously for the bill. That is absolutely incorrect. We did not vote for the bill; we voted unanimously for the report.

I voted for the report for this reason. In the report back on the bill, on page 7, is a minority report, “Minority view of New Zealand National”. I know that another party, which might speak on it, wanted to be coupled with it, but was not able to at the time. There was a unanimous vote on the report because the report enabled us to give different views. I want to draw the House’s attention to the minority view on page 7, because it sets out a number of things that are important for this House to consider. So I want to clear up first that there was not unanimous support for the bill, or opposition against the bill. A number of members on the committee actually think the bill should be passed, and I for one will be voting for the legislation.

Steve Chadwick, the chairperson of the committee, talked about the fact that a prostitution law review is happening. Well, that may be so, but I want to make this observation: is it not a great pity that the Government is not accelerating the local government rates review with the same speed it is accelerating the prostitution law review? Why has the Government not got on and done something about that local government rates review, because that review is far more important, and the Government needs to be held to account for the fact that it has dilly-dallied? The select committee—and the member knows this—very nearly passed, some 6 or 8 weeks ago, a review on local government, and the only reason we did not was that the Government said it was going to have one. Well, I ask the House where it is. Has anyone in this House seen it? Have there been any statements from the Minister? The only time he commented on the local government review was when he was asked a question by the National Party, and he had to comment. So I just make the observation that that is an important review that needs to happen, as well.

Reviews in themselves mean diddly-squat at the end of the day. It is this Parliament that can do things. The reason I am disappointed that we have this bill before us is that we were told by the proposer of the Prostitution Reform Bill, Mr Tim Barnett, that one of the things that would happen as a consequence of decriminalising prostitution was that we would see those people off the street. I well remember that debate. I well remember being told that we could vote for the bill because the prostitutes would all disappear and be in nice, well-organised, looked-after brothels. They would be well and clean. Everything would be tidy—

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I stand on behalf of New Zealand First, and I say from the outset that we will be supporting the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill. I also want to declare a vested interest, by virtue of the fact that I am a ratepaying resident of Manukau City. Because of that, my party made application to the Business Committee to allow me to sit as a non-voting member on the Local Government and Environment Committee. I wanted to join with those who submitted a minority view. Although, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was not able to append our party’s name to the minority view, I want to have it put on the record that New Zealand First certainly supports the intent of it.

This bill would make it an offence to solicit, or to loiter for the purpose of prostitution, in a public place in the Manukau district, and, because it is a local council bill, the intent is limited to just Manukau City. Sadly, the committee has used that as one of the reasons why this bill should not go any further. However, that does not remove the issue of street prostitution being a major problem in parts of Manukau City. Previous speakers have alluded to those areas of Manukau City. In spite of that, the committee has seen fit to recommend that the bill not be passed in its current form.

We in New Zealand First are, of course, disappointed in the recommendation, as we feel it contravenes the principles of the Local Government Act 2002, which focuses on local decision-making and community involvement in deciding on, and dealing with, community issues. This bill is an attempt by a local body to deal with the issues that confront it. We feel that the people of Manukau City should have that right, as the bill does not seek to change the Prostitution Reform Act and recriminalise prostitution. It seeks to limit prostitution to legally established brothels. The bill also recognises the failure of the Act to eliminate street prostitution, and addresses that failure. It should be noted that the Act was passed in 2003. Three years down the track, already we are starting to see some of the shortcomings that we were promised that reform legislation would address. Obviously, it has not done so.

We support this bill because the powers given to local authorities to make by-laws in respect of prostitution under the Act do not extend to soliciting. They are limited to the location of brothels and applicable signage. We also support the bill because we believe it recognises that street prostitution is not conducive to any of the aims of the Act, which was sold and debated in this House on the basis that it would safeguard the health and safety of sex workers and limit the age of sex workers to those over 18. Already we have heard from speakers in this House this afternoon who have given us examples of situations where that has not occurred. The bill recognises the impact of street prostitution on local residents and business owners, and the negative effect it has on the community. We have heard from some speakers that some of the submitters were rather exaggerated, in terms of how they presented their views on the situation. Notwithstanding that, the fact is that there were instances that could be justified and that were not conducive to a healthy, thriving community.

Although this was promised by supporters of the reform legislation of 2003, street prostitution has not decreased since the passage of that law. On the contrary, it is estimated that the number of sex workers in Manukau has quadrupled since 2003. I must concede that we have received some reports that contradict that allegation, but notwithstanding that, the problem is sufficiently serious for Manukau City to take the step of getting this bill into the House. The council has tried to control the problem through other means, including the installation of extra street lighting, closed-circuit television cameras, rescheduling street cleaning, locking public toilets, and meeting with police and other stakeholders to find workable solutions.

I take this opportunity to mention one group that has already been mentioned in this House: the Māori Wardens Association. That particular group, which is well intended, does not receive the financial support that groups that involve themselves in their communities, as the Māori Wardens Association does, should get. I give notice that New Zealand First will certainly be taking steps to try to address that issue.

The Act has clearly failed to control street prostitution, and provides no legal mechanism to do so. Manukau City should be applauded for taking the initiative to control behaviour that has an adverse impact on its citizens. Given the fact that this bill is now unlikely to be passed, New Zealand First would like to record its disappointment in that, and to also remind New Zealanders that we voted against the original reform legislation. We believe that prostitution carries with it enormous physical, emotional, and social harm, none of which has been reduced since the passage of the Act. On the contrary, we would argue that the harm has increased. The Act provides protection for the people who sell that type of activity—including brothel owners—and has made it easier for vulnerable women and children to become trapped in an exploitative trade. We have heard examples from the previous speaker of that particular issue.

Since the passage of the legislation, we have seen an increase in the number of under-age sex workers, and increasing assaults on, and—dare I say it—murders of, prostitutes. That runs in the face of what we were told the Act would deliver, which was health and safety. We remind the Government of its promise to review the Act. I understand that a review is currently under way, and it seems to me that some members of the select committee are putting a lot of reliance on the review process to address the issues that Manukau City has asked to be addressed in this bill.

I reiterate the position that New Zealand First will take. In consistency with our stance on the original reform legislation, we will vote for this bill.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) Link to this

The Green Party welcomes the recommendation of the Local Government and Environment Committee that the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill not be passed, and we will vote accordingly. This is not because we want to belittle or deny the genuine concerns of the council, and of some residents and business people, about the impact of street prostitution on Hunters Corner and Manurewa; rather, we do not see that the bill is a legally sound or workably useful way of finding solutions to the real problems that have been identified.

First of all, there are real issues around the way the bill transcends the normal boundaries of local bills, by trying to change the criminal law itself rather than confining itself simply to a matter relevant to its geographical borders only. If passed, this bill would create new criminal offences that would apply only in Manukau City and not in the rest of New Zealand. I would hate to see this Parliament set a precedent that could, in the future, see local bodies making and enforcing their own criminal laws on a local territorial authority by local territorial authority basis. When we passed the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003, we decriminalised soliciting in this country. The Green Party stands by its decision to support that decriminalisation now, as we did then, and we have no desire whatsoever to see that progressive reform overturned, even on a very localised basis.

Secondly, street-based sex workers are among the most marginalised and vulnerable people in this country. They are often transgender people, and often from out of town and without family locally, and whether or not they are local or transgender, they are people who need support and help from society, not persecution and criminalisation. If this bill were passed, it would result in street workers in Manukau facing the risk of being prosecuted and fined large sums of money they could never afford, for a so-called offence that would not be an offence anywhere else in Aotearoa. All this bill would do would be to penalise some of the poorest and most marginalised people for a victimless so-called crime. These are people who already find it hard to get regular work, who are likely to face discrimination in most, if not all, aspects of their lives, and who also find it hard to achieve employment even in other, safer parts of the sex industry. Many brothels and escort agencies simply will not employ them, leaving them with very few options beyond the street. If this bill were to go through, it would put the lives and security of these workers back into the same kind of danger they were in prior to the passage of the Prostitution Reform Act. Once again, the focus would be on avoiding police attention rather than on trying to survive in as safe and healthy a way as possible in what is inherently an extremely unsafe situation.

Thirdly, it is necessary, when considering this bill, to actually look at the realities of what is going on in Manukau. Submitters gave evidence at a very intense day of hearings at the Manukau City Council and gave very conflicting evidence on the extent of the problem, with the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective—which probably knows best—estimating there are actually around 37 street workers on the streets of South Auckland at present, with five of them being under the age of 18. That is a far cry from some of the horror stories and exaggerated figures we were given that day.

Many submitters who support this bill actually put far more focus on things like littering and noise than on soliciting and prostitution. I know these submitters are concerned and well-meaning people, but it appeared that a number of them were primarily motivated by moral and religious beliefs about prostitution, and were seeking this change to the law as a means to undermine the intent and operation of the Prostitution Reform Act overall, rather than to deal with the actual issues that may be problematic at Hunters Corner and Manurewa.

I cannot help but add, as an aside, that there are far more serious problems on the streets and in the homes of Manukau than those raised by this bill. The recent homicide rate, and the extraordinarily high prevalence of domestic violence and violence against children, are only a few examples of that.

However, I do not want to totally minimise the real concerns of local residents and the council about some of the by-products of street prostitution. These include using streets, lawns, and gutters as toilets; leaving rubbish—including some quite dangerous rubbish—scattered about; making a lot of noise late at night; and drinking in public. I can understand why local residents and business people do not like those things and find them a problem. However, I do not think this bill is the answer. For example, if public toilets were provided, if streets in the affected area were cleaned more often, and if police took a more proactive interest, perhaps some of these concerns could be alleviated. We have heard, for example, that in Wellington an intensive cleaning programme in the central city has been adopted, which operates 24/7, and which helps keep the affected area safe and clean. What a good idea! I am sure Manukau could follow that example.

In terms of what more could be done to assist in relation to the street workers themselves, the obvious problem arising, above all, occurs when those working are under 18. However, once again I would say that this bill is not needed in this regard, as the Prostitution Reform Act actually increased penalties for people who use under-age workers. A new law is not needed; perhaps more proactive policing is. Rather than a punitive solution, the Green Party would much rather see a supportive approach being taken to the health and welfare of street workers. We would like to see more funding going to groups who provide support in a non-judgmental way to street prostitutes. We would like to see the establishment of safe-house brothels, where prostitutes can rent a room to do their work, as has been developed by the council in south Sydney in conjunction with private businesses.

On another front, the Green Party also totally opposes the bill because of its inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Clause 12 of this local bill is totally out of hand in the way it grants to the police powers that they do not have elsewhere in criminal law, and that infringe on people’s rights to refrain from making statements to police.

This bill is a gross over-reaction on the part of Manukau City Council to street prostitution in its city. Just because street workers are by their nature more visible does not meant they should be re-criminalised. The Green Party does not want to return, even in one small part of Aotearoa, to the Victorian ethos that permeated our laws on prostitution prior to 2003. The original Prostitution Reform Act provided for a review process to take place. This bill is an attempt to totally circumvent and pre-empt that process. I understand that, in any case, work is already happening on this particular area of street soliciting in Manukau, and that is good, but this bill is not required to help make that happen.

In opposing this bill, I encourage the Manukau City Council to keep working for solutions to the identified problems in ways that do not harass, punish, or further marginalise the sex workers themselves. The council should be, and I hope is, working alongside the Prostitutes Collective in Auckland, and other local church and community organisations, to resolve the issues involved. That is a much more sustainable and less harmful approach than the one taken by the bill, and the Green Party hopes that a majority in this House tonight will see that this bill is consigned to the archaic dustbin of history, where it belongs.

Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Kia ora, tēnā koe. The location of my electorate office is Hunters Corner, the site where the street workers who are targeted in the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill gather. I have seen sex workers, whakawahine, and trans-gender people going about their business. I have not, however, succumbed to the practice other MPs in this House have—that is, of counting the actual numbers of street girls. The Counties-Manukau police reported a maximum of 21 sex workers on the night of 4 December 2005, but said the average number sighted is under six per night. These statistics are consistent with data held by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. The numbers are, however, much fewer than in some of the sensational mythology built around this bill.

I think the dubious numbers game deserves another look. All manner of statistics have been bandied around with wild claims that numbers of sex workers have shot up since the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act in 2003—for example, an increase of a whopping 400 percent. One explanation could be—as was told to me—that one of the people set up to count numbers of sex workers on the streets was told to return every 15 minutes and do a fresh head count. Well, it would seem fairly improbable that the turn-round was so rapid a new team would be out there every quarter of an hour. The Local Government and Environment Committee report highlighted the difficulty of obtaining accurate information.

The issue of data is particularly relevant in the counting of young people on the street. Such are the numbers of our young population on the street that it would be virtually impossible to distinguish between those who are sex workers, those who are full-on street kids, and those who are just young people hanging out with their mates, as many young people are apt to do today. Older workers, particularly the queens, have said to me that, being Māori, when they see Māori kids in the game they are more inclined to kick them off home, or at least off the streets, rather than see them enter a lifestyle that is less than safe. That is called whanaungatanga—caring for one another. What this bill sets out to do is far from caring; it sets out to control the street life, and to institute an unduly harsh and punitive regime for street-based sex workers, and for anyone the authorities might deem to be associated with them.

It is not as if we have not been there before. A study by Sorrenson, The Maori People and the City of Auckland, described the situation in 1863, some 150 years ago, when Ngāti Whatua had: “to abide by a curfew and wear coloured armbands if entering into the streets during the day.” Sorrenson goes further to note that the King movement was spurred on by the treatment Māori received in Auckland. Speakers at King movement meetings frequently referred to the evils of liquor, the prostitution of their women, and their ill-treatment in Auckland. One has to wonder whether the next step, if this drastic legislation were to get through, would be the introduction of coloured armbands and curfews to keep the natives at bay, to get them off the streets.

We in South Auckland know what we are dealing with. We know of the violence, the criminality, the socio-economic deprivation, and the hardship endured within that community. But the answer is not adding another layer of crime and punishment to the mix. This bill would have the effect of bringing criminal charges against young kids, and making the lives of vulnerable teenagers even worse. A source of authority in this field is the End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, Child Sex Tourism and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT New Zealand) group, which has spoken out against the exploitation of children. In a study the group undertook of 47 sex workers who had commenced sexual activity under the age of 18 years, 40 percent were Māori. That study reported a high consumption of alcohol and frequent drug taking. Fifty-six percent reported childhood sexual abuse, and 79 percent reported that workers were living away from their parents when they first became involved in commercial sexual activity.

So there are huge opportunities for intervention in many other areas that could benefit from focused policy other than punitive measures based around locking sex workers up for life. Why is the Manukau City Council not looking at comprehensive well-being programmes that deal with the traumatic after-effects of sexual abuse, or investing energy into restoring whanaungatanga as a key value in the community, so that children want to stay home and want to be with their families?

We want compassion, not conviction; and protection, not prosecution. The Prostitution Reform Act gave that. It paved the way for sex workers to perceive the police as those helping them to protect their rights, not punishing them for being on the streets. But this bill just adds a new menu of offences to criminalise street workers. The bill sets up a scenario by which prostitutes or their clients could be fined up to $10,000 for loitering for the purposes of prostitution. It also sets up powers for the police to such an extent that the police would be able to demand information from people if there were reasonable grounds to believe they had committed an offence. Anyone refusing to give information could be fined $5,000.

In many ways these are the people most on the fringe of our society. And what does this bill do? It targets young people in Manukau as ripe to be prosecuted; it is like the laws prohibiting graffiti. In Manukau, the implications of the bill are that these young people will become identified as human litter—as the rubbish the council wants to sweep off the streets just as it seeks to wipe the walls clean of graffiti art.

In Counties-Manukau I am privileged to be working every week—every week—with the police and about 40 community groups that are creating opportunities for intervention in broken homes, in drinking homes, in abusive homes, and in drug homes, and on prostitution issues. My role is simply coordinating and assisting community groups and fostering cooperation amongst them, in order to be an effective force in helping change dysfunctional behaviour. These groups need support, not a new law discriminating against South Auckland. These are the groups that voluntarily and unselfishly assist in teaching motherhood to many young mothers who have just blundered into motherhood. These are the groups that offer counselling, give food, and give social advice and skills. These are the groups that are experienced in child abuse and in dealing with it. These are the groups that provide courses for men who have abused their partners. I say: “Open your eyes, people. South Aucklanders know what is needed.” They know that major change in their suburbs can happen only by their own involvement. Never mind the persecution of youth who will get caught in this legislation by simply being just “up town”—we need to invest in caring and in healing.

This Manukau bill seems to be motivated more by declining property values and nuisance factors than civil liberties. The Human Rights Commission has advised the House that the bill is fundamentally flawed and should be withdrawn, citing a host of international human rights instruments that would be at risk of being breached by the actions of this bill.

I remain hopeful that together we in the Manukau community can make a difference to its social and economic environment. I applaud the initiative of the groups working out there on the streets, whose members do not count workers as data for the press or categorise clients as fodder for glorified gossip. This House must vote this bill down.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) Link to this

This bill, the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill, has come back to Parliament because Manukau City has a very real problem with street prostitution. One of the areas is Hunters Corner, and we have just heard from an expert eyewitness in Pita Sharples in relation to Hunters Corner. But Pita Sharples did not mention the other, bigger area, which is Northcrest in Manurewa. I, on 25 September, just a few weeks ago, heard direct evidence from Sir Barry Curtis, the Mayor of Manukau, and from city councillor Colleen Brown, that girls as young as 14 and 15 are working as prostitutes at Northcrest to get money to buy paint and to sniff glue. It is older and more professional prostitutes, on the other hand, who work at Hunters Corner. I make the distinction between those two areas.

Together with the Hon Marian Hobbs and my former colleague Larry Baldock I visited both of those situations on a Monday night to observe the activity. We were told two things about Monday nights. First, it is the quiet night of the week, and, secondly, activity is more limited during the winter than it is during the summer months. It is quite clear, therefore, that what we saw on that Monday night, which I will mention in a moment, is a much smaller level of activity than we would typically see on a Thursday night, a Friday night, a Saturday night, or even on a Sunday night. Those are the big days of the week when it comes to street soliciting in those two areas.

Sir Barry and Colleen told us that, contrary to the Christchurch school of medicine reports, numbers are not dropping, and have not dropped, since the Prostitution Reform Act came into being. Indeed, all the evidence that we heard on 25 Septemberpointed exactly in the other direction. The Māori wardens were the source of the information about a 400 percent increase, which has been mentioned by the New Zealand Herald. I would like to advise the House, and in particular Sue Bradford, who mentioned this, that the Prostitutes Collective told us, in answer to our question, that it does not count the young women in Northcrest who are dressed in hoodies—one can see them, and we did on that night—as prostitutes, because they are not, in the collective’s terminology, professional prostitutes. Therefore those numbers are significantly under-counted. The number that we were given for a typical Thursday night—the big night of the week—in Northcrest alone, is 55 active prostitutes over 18, and 18 active prostitutes under 18. That is a typical Thursday night at Northcrest. Those members who do not believe that can simply go, as we did, and have a look for themselves. They will find that the evidence that was presented to the select committee is essentially completely accurate.

Let us look for a moment at what the Act did in relation to street soliciting. All it did was repeal the Summary Offences Act to remove the offence of soliciting. In other words all it did specifically about street soliciting was simply say to the nation: “This activity is no longer illegal. You are free now to go ahead and solicit on the streets of New Zealand with no constraints at all.”

It is very interesting to think of it in the context of that legislation, for two reasons. Firstly, as others have mentioned, we were told by the promoter of the bill—and, by the way, all the United Future MPs voted against it—that with legal, up-market brothels we would see people disappear off the streets. As Mr Assistant Speaker, H V Ross Robertson, well knows, because he is familiar with this area, that has not happened. Secondly, I want to make it clear to the House that it is illegal in Manukau City, and in every other city in New Zealand, to sell bananas on the streets. One cannot sell commercial products on the streets of New Zealand cities without getting a permit from the council. However, prostitution is perfectly legal. This is the whole point of why the Manukau City Council, in desperation, has come to this House—because it has no way of controlling this. We, as Parliament, have said it is OK for people to sell and buy sex on the streets. We have not given local authorities any tools to regulate that, whatsoever. That is the reality of the prostitution reform legislation that was passed by this House in 2003.

Let me make a further couple of comments. That same reform legislation, as we know, did impose new penalties for people who purchase sex from sex workers under 18—severe penalties: imprisonment of up to 7 years in that legislation. So how come on a typical Thursday night any observer can go to Northcrest and count up to 18 under-age girls working—I was going to say “their tails off”, which is the way one of the women put it to me? I will come back to that in a moment, because no one is getting arrested.

TIM BARNETT (Labour—Christchurch Central) Link to this

I am very proud to speak in the second reading of the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill. My credentials for doing that are that I was the sponsor of the Prostitution Reform Bill, and that I represent Christchurch Central, which has—probably outside Auckland Central—the largest, though modest in size, presence of street prostitution in the country just one block from my office and a couple of blocks from where I live.

Other speakers so far have explained their difficulties with the bill, or their support for it, in fairly practical terms. I would like to take the House into a wider context around this issue. Back in 1949 the United Nations passed a resolution—a convention paper—calling for the decriminalisation of prostitution. Nothing much happened around the world until, in the 1980s with the advent of HIV, countries around the world started to develop laws to address HIV. Every country was advised—internationally, worldwide—to do three things. One was to decriminalise gay sex. The second was to provide a clean needle service to prevent the spread of HIV through dirty needles. The third was to decriminalise prostitution. New Zealand has a proud record in that, thanks to the fact there was a Labour Government at the time. We did the first two things in 1986 and 1989. Rather than move to decriminalise prostitution, we provided funding to the Prostitutes Collective. Through that the debate began, and, thanks to Maurice Williamson and others in this House today, the issue stayed alive.

Back in 1996, the planning for prostitution law reform came into Parliament, and Katherine O’Regan was the key driver there. In the year 2000 the bill had transferred into my name. It was put into the members’ ballot and drawn, and it passed into law in 2003. Between 2000 and now—and I am sure right through to at least 2008, when the review of that law will finally report to Parliament—New Zealand has experienced a very concentrated debate on prostitution. This is quite rightly so, because we were the first country in the world to take that step. We based the legislation largely on the law in New South Wales where prostitution has now been decriminalised for 10 years. We deliberately decided to decriminalise rather than legalise—legalisation being the approach taken in the state of Victoria—because legalisation maintains the myth that there should be a legal sector and an illegal sector in prostitution.

By debating and enacting decriminalisation, New Zealand identified what is genuinely harmful about prostitution and what is a legal nonsense. Our law is, in my view, the best law in the world. It is regarded worldwide as being among the best laws—if not the best—in this area. Some members say they voted for the law 3 years ago, or they watched the debate 3 years ago, and have not seen much change. With great respect to fellow members, not many people in this House actually spend a lot of time in brothels or wandering the streets to identify what is really happening in the lives of sex workers. Behind the scenes, an awful lot has happened. The debate has moved from being a debate around the entire sex industry to a debate around street prostitution. This is an advance.

The law now focuses on the people most likely to be hurt by prostitution, and they are the sex workers. It is a law focused on reducing harm to sex workers and also on reducing harm to clients and to communities. With great respect to Gordon Copeland, who wears his powerful spiritual beliefs on his sleeve, I listened to him speaking for 10 minutes in this House and not once did he speak about the welfare of the weakest, the most vulnerable people in this situation, who are the sex workers. Gordon Copeland may well be an eloquent spokesperson, but only for some of the people who live in South Auckland. I heard nothing from him about how legislation and agencies should address the suffering, the vulnerability, and the future of sex workers in our society.

What the law passed in 2003 actually did was to make a whole lot of things tougher. The penalties around coercion are now twice as high as they were before. The penalties around practising safer sex were introduced; there was nothing previously. There was no obligation on the client, or on the sex worker, or on the operator to promote or practise safer sex. That is now in place. The penalty for the clients of sex workers aged under 18 is now 7 years’ imprisonment—doubled from the old law. There are now employment obligations—both the right of a sex worker to be under an employment contract, and also effective bans on bonding, fining, and some of those hideous ways in which people were previously trapped in the sex industry.

Of course, street work actually escapes some of that. Street work will always be operating at the very edge of the law. It is an individual activity. It is not based in a building, it is not based on an employment contract or an employment relationship, the clients are more private, and it also accounts for about only 5 percent of the entire sex industry. Therefore, the law will always struggle to have such a direct and immediate impact. However, we did, in 2003, remove the old legal ban on street workers who had a prostitution or a drug conviction from being able to work in brothels. That ban was removed so that some could move off the streets.

Some previous speakers have recognised that we allowed the development of safe houses, which under the old law would have been banned. Now they are not banned. We also, as I mentioned earlier, made it tougher for the clients of sex workers aged under 18 to operate. We also removed the convictions associated with soliciting. On 2 nights when this House was discussing prostitution law reform, sex workers were being removed in large numbers from the streets of Auckland. That was what was happening only 3 years ago in this country. Those workers were being removed, and now, as a result of the convictions they have, they are prevented from being able to move on from prostitution into the wider world. So there are ways in which this law reform will impact on street work. It will not be immediate, but it will happen over time. The other obvious point to make is that nothing in prostitution law reform has either increased the demand for prostitution or increased the supply of people undertaking street work. It was the America’s Cup in Auckland that led to an increase in the demand for prostitution services; it was not the prostitution law reform going through.

In terms of Manukau—and I have visited the streets of Manukau, as others here have done—there are myths and there are realities. I heard from Gordon Copeland that he had been told that in Northcrest there were, I think, about 73 sex workers on the streets. Well, between his speaking and now, I actually rang the worker in the Prostitutes Collective who goes into that community once a week and who knows all the sex workers in South Auckland by name. She said to me that between three and five sex workers are operating in Northcrest, and she was able to give me their names, although I did not want their names. Therefore, the reality is that the number is small.

The reason why there are people on the streets who seem to be engaged in sex work, but are not, is that the pattern of sex work in South Auckland is about bunches of people on the streets, some of whom are younger people, some of whom are engaged in sex work, and some of whom are not. So any number counting that does not understand the culture of the activity on the streets will assume that they are all involved in sex work, whereas, in fact, they are not. So the issue of numbers is a complex one, but going by the counting done by the Prostitutes Collective—and its members are the people on the ground in South Auckland—week by week, not by Gordon Copeland on a one-off visit, the numbers are not increasing and they have not increased since the law reform. In fact, I have had a report that somebody who was employed by Manukau City to do the counting counted for 3 or 4 nights running and added up the figures, only to find that that total figure was presented as a one-off by the city council.

The other point to mention about South Auckland is that the people who will be most affected by this legislation are a very particular group in our society. The figure for South Auckland is maybe 50 or 60 people involved in sex work; one of those is of European descent, about 10 are Pacific Islanders, and about 50 are Māori. I cannot think of another piece of legislation that is designed and targeted to impact more on one vulnerable group in our society than this insidious little piece of legislation is. I can imagine that there are many reasons for people wanting to support this legislation—maybe local democracy is one of them—but, at the same time, if we have one law in South Auckland and Manukau City relating to street prostitution and a different law in the rest of the country, what does that say about our ability to have consistent criminal law around the country?

Those people who dislike prostitution, and who were frustrated by the law reform going through Parliament 3 years ago, should wait for the most comprehensive review of prostitution law reform that has ever been undertaken by any country, which will report in 2 years’ time. I say to those who have concerns about other social issues in Manukau that need addressing that those issues can be dealt with. This legislation would do nothing to achieve that, and I urge this House to vote the bill down. Thank you.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) Link to this

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill. First, I acknowledge George Hawkins for having the courage to bring in this local bill and for supporting his local council, Sir Barry Curtis, and the various local community boards, particularly that of Papatoetoe. I also acknowledge the Prostitutes Collective for its efforts to improve the health and well-being of prostitutes in a situation where I believe they are not well supported by this Labour Government.

I feel compelled to speak out in support of this bill not because it is technically perfect—it certainly is not—but because I am deeply concerned that children, including girls and boys who are claimed to be as young as 12, are now soliciting on the streets of Manukau and in many other areas around South Auckland.

I was deeply worried when the Labour Government introduced the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, that it made no, or scant, provision or detailed planning for the protection of children. We have just heard Tim Barnett with his grand plan. It is typical of a Labour Government that it brings in a liberalising law, but fails to have the supporting structures that will help people like those children who are soliciting in South Auckland as we speak. It was obvious when the reform bill came in that there would be a number of prostitutes who simply could not get employment in registered brothels, and that they would turn underground or else they would go on to the streets. That is exactly what has happened, and that is exactly what this Labour Government has failed to support.

When I look at this report of the Local Government and Environment Committee, I believe that I see a Labour-led majority report that is utterly patronising and just demonstrates how little this Government has done to support the very things that it stated were important. For instance, the report states: “We consider the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill contradictory to the intent of the Prostitution Reform Act. As well as decriminalising prostitution and soliciting, the Act recognised prostitution as a legitimate profession and sought to establish appropriate employment, health, and safety provisions to safeguard the rights of sex workers and protect them from exploitation.”

Well, we see on the streets of Manukau exactly the opposite situation. We do know that the hapless Minister of Health, Pete Hodgson, who has considerable difficulty with the waiting lists, has not done a thing to control the increasing rates of STDs, syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, and human papilloma virus that are in epidemic proportions down in the streets of Manukau City. Little has been done by this Labour Government to strengthen the importance of the reproductive health strategy that was initiated by Jenny Shipley back in the 1990s. Those are the sorts of supports that Labour should have put in place when it liberalised the law, but it failed to do so.

Secondly, the report states that a “key aim of the Prostitution Reform Act was to prohibit the involvement of persons under the age of 18 in the sex industry.” So what are those children doing there, 3 years after the bill became an Act? [Interruption] I ask Mrs Chadwick what they are doing soliciting there now. Last night I phoned the local chairman of the Papatoetoe Community Board, who said he would take me out this Friday. He absolutely guaranteed to show me literally dozens of children on the streets after midnight in Ōtāhuhu, Manurewa, Manukau, and Papatoetoe. This claim can be backed up by my colleague Chester Borrows, who has been out there recently and who described these young children to me. All the Labour Government had done was to help a busload of transvestites come in at about midnight and distribute condoms to those workers.

I want to look at the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. I agree there are problems in this bill that require modification, but I say that the protection of the young children is much more important, and Labour has failed to do anything significant to protect them. Let us look at what is talked about in this report. It talks about existing statutory provisions and other measures, and states: “It is our belief, and this view is endorsed by various submitters, that the behaviour of sex workers on the streets is generally regulated more effectively by their peers and outreach groups working with them than by legislation.” Well, why are those groups not doing so now? The report goes on to state that the groups are not being properly funded. Why are they not being funded? Labour has basically let them down.

In respect of council-led initiatives, the report states: “Manukau City Council has developed this bill following what it perceives to be the failure of various initiatives including closing parks at night, cleaning, installing surveillance cameras, roading changes, traffic and pedestrian flow management, and an increase in police presence in the area.” Well, is that not a hang of a lot that the council has done already?

MARK BLUMSKY (National) Link to this

I am one of the few speakers tonight who was also a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I am basing my speech on what I saw and heard in the select committee, what I read in the submissions, and what I have personally discovered first-hand in discussions I have had outside the select committee process that addressed questions I had to answer in my own mind. I am not tainted by any previous discussion in the House; I do not have any background in that debate, at all. My position, and the way I will vote on this bill, is formed purely from the process I have just underlined.

I actually enjoyed the select committee process. Even though at the end of the day we had a minority report, I thought the whole committee took very seriously the problem that Manukau is bringing to the table. It made every attempt to listen, to understand, and to have great compassion for the problems that people were bringing to the table. So I congratulate the select committee on that process, and I also acknowledge the fine work that the officials did for us.

This is a hard situation, because I have followed all my National Party colleagues in the debate, and I have reached a different conclusion. I say to my esteemed colleague Dr Hutchison that I will not try to take apart his argument. This has been a passionate debate. There is a lot of emotion in this issue, and one cannot take it lightly. The biggest problem also for me is that I am a huge fan of local government, and of the fact that local government should be looking for local solutions. The problem is that I do not think this bill is a very good solution. One has to support where local government is coming from emotionally, but the debate and the discussions we have been hearing focus on kids aged 12. That is not the issue here; the issue is street prostitution in Manukau, not 12-year-olds in prostitution. That is a different issue that sure as hell needs to be addressed by this House and the review, with great urgency.

At the end of the day this is not a good bill and I cannot support it, just about for that reason alone. I will allude to some of the reasons why this is so. One of the major concerns I had in the select committee was that I felt many of the submissions came from people who just wanted to ban prostitution, full stop. Most of those submitters just did not like prostitution, and they have that right—that is not an issue—but that was not the purpose for the select committee inquiry. At the end of the day, prostitution is legal, and I am sure this House will have the chance to re-debate that, if that process is part of the August 2007 review. I sure as heck hope—and I am sure it will happen—that all of those who made submissions on the Manukau City Council (Control of Street Prostitution) Bill will make submissions on the review process.

I first of all decided on the following reality check: will the bill, if it is passed, make a difference? Will any difference be made to the problems that Manukau is talking about? One has to ask the industry. According to the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, since the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 was passed, “we have seen many positive gains and examples of the impact of the legislation. These gains include health and safety, employment rights, greater access to health services, and reporting of incidents to the police. The Manukau City Council bill endangers this.”

It is not just the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective that says this. Recently, I wandered the streets, as I do most nights with Winston. As members know, I live in Cuba Mall, and it is very easy for me to wander through the red-light area of our city. Winston and I have had the chance, over many nights, to converse with people in the street prostitution industry. I assure the House they are very clear in the message they gave me that this bill will not make a bean’s worth of difference to stopping street prostitution—in Wellington, Manukau, or wherever. The problem was that they ended up patting Winston half the jolly time. I quote again: “The purpose of the Manukau City Council bill is to prohibit soliciting, and the NZPC does not believe it will achieve this goal by recriminalising people.”

But I have to suggest that through this process the community has spoken of some real concerns and issues. In the select committee we heard some terrible stories. For example, too many people are now buying P, and, in an effort to get money to subsidise their P habit, many of them, unfortunately, are selling their bodies. But, even worse, we heard stories of families where the older members forced their younger family members on to the street to earn the money to support someone else’s habit. That is where the message came out, loud and clear, that some of them were kids aged 12. Those older family members are a real problem, because of what they are forcing their younger family members into doing, so that they can feed their own habit. The tragedy is that the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 supposedly prohibits prostitution by people under 18. So that has turned to custard, and needs to be very seriously addressed. The police need to be provided with the tools—namely, more police—so that they can deal with the problem. They have made it very clear that under-age prostitution is not a priority for them. They weigh other issues much higher in priority, given their resources.

After reading the submissions and hearing the submitters, I suggest that a lot of the issues associated with prostitution in Manukau are not actually about prostitution itself. I have a tendency to believe that the bill is a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The situation in Manukau is not very different from that in many other places. It seems there is an issue with litter, there is an issue with noise, there is an issue with graffiti, and there is an issue with public nuisance. Many of the submitters who came before the committee wanted to talk about litter, noise, and public nuisance. There is a hell of a lot of law out there now that can be used to address those problems. The president of Hunters Corner Town Centre, Papatoetoe, said that he was very specific about noise, offensive litter left in doorways, and the perceived association with crime and graffiti.

As I indicated earlier, many of the submitters wanted to talk about litter and graffiti, and things not being clean. The police have very much come under the spotlight, and rightly so, and I say to the Government that it has to send a message to the police in South Auckland that they must reprioritise on this issue, the minute the Government gives them the numbers. How big is the problem? Many of my colleagues in the House today alluded to the fact that the numbers of people involved are not as dramatically large as we have been told. The issue has been talked up. There is an average of six to 10, not the hundreds that we are hearing. I have had that first-hand, as well.

The bill imposes fines of up to $10,000, and the people who came through the process made it quite clear that they would just work harder to raise the $10,000. I can assure the House that if they are fined $10,000, they will be out on the streets a lot more to earn the money to pay the fine. If members honestly believe that a $10,000 fine will get those people off the streets, they are absolutely wrong. In the worst case, if they fear a fine they go underground. If they go underground, we have incredible issues to do with safety. We have talked about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and there are issues there. As I said, issues were raised about cleanliness.

I fully sympathise with the intent of the bill, but it does not deliver the solution that Manukau is after. There is a review due in under a year’s time. That review, I hope, will bring something back to the House that can provide solutions to some of the problems. I hope we look at those solutions in a nationwide picture, not a specific locality picture. Because the problems of those 12-year-olds, and so on, are not Manukau’s problems; they are New Zealand’s problems. I say to the Government: “You have to be part of that solution.”

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) Link to this

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member who has just resumed his seat said that he was in the red-light district on several occasions with a chap called Winston. The perception is—and this is a serious point of order—that if he was in the red-light district with a person called Winston, the public would take that to be Winston Peters. I think the member should clarify that, because we really know he was with Johnny Walker or Jim Beam, the people who pushed him off the stairs.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) Link to this

I just wanted to explain, and I thought the House understood because I have talked about Winston on many occasions—

MOANA MACKEY (Labour) Link to this

I rise to take a call on the Manukau City Council (Control of Prostitution) Bill. I have to say I agree with the previous speaker that we all understand that the sentiments behind this bill are laudable. We have a community that feels frustrated with a problem, but, like the previous speaker, I do not feel that this bill will address that problem, and more so, I actually feel that this bill could compound further problems in what is already a very delicate and vulnerable area, particularly concerning the safety and health of prostitutes or sex workers.

We have heard a lot of people talking in this House tonight about how concerned they are for sex workers and how they feel that the Prostitution Reform Act dealt them a blow. I say to those members that maybe they want to spend some of their spare time working with the many groups who do work with sex workers if they are as concerned as that about their health and safety. They should spend some of their time working with those groups and working with the many groups that help to get sex workers out of the industry.

I was not in the House when the Prostitution Reform Act went through, but one of the arguments that came through in the media that really convinced me the most was the fact that for those workers who do want to leave the industry, the hardest thing—the thing that locks them in—is the criminal record they get when they are prosecuted with a sex crime. It limits them from working in many other areas and tars them for life. I thought that was a very, very powerful argument.

We have heard from many people tonight who have gone in and looked at the area we are talking about. We have had various numbers on how many sex workers are operating in those areas—from three, four, or five up into the 60s and 70s. I would have liked to know from the people who have gone in there and have given us the very high numbers, how often they went into those areas before the Prostitution Reform Act was passed, and saw how things were going in those areas then. Like many of the issues that come to this House that end up being very emotional and very heated, a lot of it comes from a position of, quite frankly, ignorance of an issue that has never really come to the fore previously. We have not gone out and seen what the reality is, because it has never come up in the political arena. We are all very busy; we are all looking at many things.

Then, all of a sudden, an issue like prostitution—or youth drinking or many other issues—comes in. A spotlight is put on it. Suddenly we see the reality that many vulnerable New Zealanders live with every day. We do not like it, and we should not like it. But the fact is that it is very hard to say that New Zealand has gone to the dogs now, when people did not go out there to see what the situation was beforehand. Because it was illegal, we were not able to collect statistics whereby we would have been able to survey what was happening. Most of it was underground, because to admit that it happened was to admit that a criminal offence was being committed. So it is very difficult to say that things are so, so much worse now.

I suspect that for a long time in New Zealand we have had a very big problem with under-age prostitution. The law now has far more teeth. Of course, since the Prostitution Reform Act was passed we have seen prosecutions, which is something we never saw in this country before.

I say to all members of this House that at any point when we are discussing prostitution, it is important to remember that I doubt there are many industries in this country that are as reliant on market forces as prostitution. The fact is that if people stopped buying those services, there simply would not be a problem. It is all too easy to stand up here and vilify prostitutes, vilify what they do, and ignore the fact that many of us, even though we do not realise it, probably know people who partake in those services on a regular basis. They are probably people who do not live up to the stereotype that too often we hear about when we are all engaging in a very political debate about prostitution and what we believe its reality is.

Across the country, since the Prostitution Reform Act was passed, we have seen a variety of changes. I know that in my home town of Gisborne, for example, the local brothel has closed since the passing of the Prostitution Reform Act. I do not know whether that had anything to do with the Act. I suspect again it was more likely to be market forces and other things, and the fact that now everyone knew where it was it made it far more difficult for clients to go there without being recognised. But that is an issue that we have had for a long time.

I agree that where there is under-age prostitution, we need to be absolutely adamant that we will not settle for that. The fact is that we now have a law that allows us to put some teeth behind it. We have removed many of the difficulties that stopped prostitutes from working indoors, in areas where they were far safer. As Mr Blumsky said, there is a myriad of laws that already deal with public nuisance. If people are being hassled on the street, if people are finding things offensive, there is already a myriad of laws that can deal with that. It is amusing that many people will stand up in this House and argue that they do not like laws that are prescriptive, they do not like laws that do things that other laws already do, but they are now saying that that is exactly what they would want to do here.

In summary, I think that we all understand why this bill is here. I congratulate George Hawkins on bringing it to this House. I know that he is a very powerful local advocate and that he always speaks up for his community, but this certainly is not the bill that will deal to the problem. If this issue is a problem in South Auckland it is probably also a problem in other places. If there is a genuine issue that needs to be dealt with, it should be dealt with on a consistent basis across the whole country, not just in one part of it. I suspect that many of the votes tonight will be along purely political lines and not necessarily about the fact that this bill will affect only one part of the country.

The bill will not achieve what it wants to achieve, but it is an important debate to have when we are 1 year and a bit out from a review of the Prostitution Reform Act. I ask members to remember, when they are going out, prior to that review, and prior to this becoming an issue again, to talk about what it was like beforehand to the people who know. I get the sense that sometimes people say they do not want to talk to the sex workers themselves or to the Prostitutes Collective necessarily, because they will not be given the kind of opinion that will go against the kinds of changes they want to see in the law. But they are the people who know, because they deal with this every single day. They do not come in one day a year, have a look on one night, and decide what happens. They deal with this every day, and they have the best interests of those workers at hand.

Sex workers are some of the most vulnerable workers in this country. They work in an industry that personally I do not understand. I suspect that a lot of them get into it from necessity rather than from anything else, but that does not mean we should use them and use the law to vilify what they do and to make their position even more vulnerable because we do not like the act that is carried out. At the end of the day if people were not buying these services, then we would not have the problems we have. I sometimes think that people who stand up in this House and talk about prostitution forget that most important fact.