KEY POINTS:
Lisa Lewis didn't want to turn up to Parliament in a bikini because politicians would not have taken her seriously.
The 26-year-old service station attendant instead dressed in an executive-looking outfit made especially for her appearance before the commerce select committee yesterday.
She was opposing the Major Events Management Bill, under which streakers at international events could be jailed for up to three months and face a $5000 fine.
Ms Lewis, the bikini-streaker who ran on to the field during an All Blacks game last year, argued that streaking was part of the history of rugby and added entertainment value. Banning it would result in smaller crowds.
But her submission seemed contradictory in saying a ban would only encourage more streakers, as a jail sentence would be a "badge of honour" and streakers would win sympathy from media and the public.
Committee chairman Gerry Brownlee asked her if she seriously thought people went to rugby games hoping to see a streaker. She replied:
"It's like horseracing. People don't go just to watch the horses race."
Her submission said that streakers were unfairly targeted. "There is no difference to a rugby player removing a torn pair of shorts on a field to a pitch-invader being nude."
Streaking should be celebrated, but with ground rules, she said. She proposed a "bikini streak" after the game to keep the tradition, but deter streakers from interrupting a match. Streakers could wear bikinis advertising certain brands. "It would be like the best-dressed at the horse-racing, but doing it in a bikini."
Mr Brownlee told her the proposal was outside the scope of the bill, which aims primarily to protect official sponsors at events such as Rugby World Cup 2011 from "ambush marketing". It would also prohibit ticket-scalping.
Mr Brownlee told Ms Lewis she had "come to the wrong place" and suggested she take the bikini-streak idea to Rugby World Cup 2011 Ltd.
National MP Richard Worth reassured her: "We have appreciated your submission, though. You should not feel you have wasted your time."
Afterwards, Ms Lewis told the Herald she had taken to the field in a bikini last year not because of the attention, but because it took courage.
"If I'd wanted attention I could have gone about it in a whole lot of other ways."
She added it had taken courage to appear before the committee, but scoffed at the idea of making her submission in a bikini as a show of courage. "I wanted to be taken seriously. If I had come in a bikini, they'd just be staring at my body, not listening to what I had to say."
Green MP Keith Locke encouraged Ms Lewis to make a submission.
He said streaking should not be outlawed and supported looking at alternatives to throwing streakers in jail.
Streaking was about freedom of expression, he said.
Mr Locke walked through Newmarket wearing only bodypaint in 2005 after losing a bet that an Act MP would not be re-elected in Epsom.
