Scott McMurray: Most people don't want to have a brothel next door

COMMENT

Prostitution Reform Bill sponsor Tim Barnett should keep out of councils' ways while they do a job which none of them asked for.

It is not surprising that Mr Barnett wants the prostitution trade to flourish and objects to controls on where brothels are sited. Remember his vision articulated in November last year:

"If I look 10 years ahead, the kind of industry I'd like to see is one where there would, for example, be chains of very high-quality brothels around the country so they're great places to work and good places for clients to go."

Welcome to Mr Barnett's brave new world of prostitution law. Councils now have the unenviable task of trying to control the location of brothels, to regulate signs and to prevent public nuisance and serious offence. Most are finding this complex and difficult. The new law didn't provide any resources for councils, nor did it establish any system of complaints. Compliance and monitoring will also fall on their plate.

What Mr Barnett doesn't acknowledge is that most people don't want a brothel next door. Nor do they want brothels at the local shops, or pimps and prostitutes looking for business at the school gates.

Juliet Yates, chairwoman of the Auckland City Council's city development committee, says initial feedback from community boards and organisations shows there are significant public health, safety and nuisance issues with the commercial sex trade that warrant control.

Its not just the noise, traffic, hours of operation, signs, street prostitution, change in character of the area or the drugs and common gang or criminal connections which are negative effects. It's also the lure that brothels present and the example that sets for children. And for many people brothels are just plain offensive.

Rightfully so, Auckland City says it doesn't want brothels in residential areas or within 250m of certain places. The law gives it the ability to make those decisions after consultation with its ratepayers.

Reaction from some prostitute advocates has been predictable. The Prostitutes Collective, which receives some $150,000 a month from taxpayers, wrote the original prostitution bill and lobbied for even more liberal law. This is consistent with its affiliation to the World Charter for Prostitutes Rights that states:

"There should be no law which implies systematic zoning of prostitution. Conditions should be absolutely determined by them and no one else."

Mr Barnett says that harm minimisation is the goal. What he and other prostitution proponents ignore or fail to realise is that prevention is the best way to minimise harm. This applies not only to the location of brothels, but to prostitutes as well.

An 11-year longitudinal study by Danish criminologists found that all prostitutes suffer deep psychological damage as a result of their occupation. Numerous other studies show the terrible harm as a consequence of prostitution. This evidence was overlooked when passing this bill, as was Australian experience.

Since they liberalised prostitution laws, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have faced a thriving sex industry, a surge in international trafficking, worsening of child prostitution, more drugs, increased gang tensions and community problems. Is it any wonder Auckland City Council is wary of this industry?

A briefing paper for the NSW Parliament says the state is still grappling with the vexed issue of where to locate legal brothels and how to close down illegal ones. The Department of Urban Affairs and Planning wrote to all councils advising them that brothels were most suitable in commercial and industrial premises and that they could restrict brothels to industrial areas that are not adjacent to schools or facilities often used by children.

What happens when a brothel sets up in a place where it's not permitted? Local councils have to prove it, then work through expensive and lengthy processes trying to shut them down. Ratepayers, of course, pick up the bill.

Mr Barnett's solution is to allow brothels to set up anywhere. He argues that prostitution has always existed and we must accept it as inevitable. Is that the same way the exploitation of poor and vulnerable has always existed?

Incidentally, Mr Barnett now wants to apply this logic to drug laws. It is nonsense for him to suggest that the new law doesn't morally sanction prostitution. Law, by its very nature, either encourages or discourages an activity.

What this is really about is making prostitution just like any other business. The problem is that the sale of a human being - usually a woman - for sex is not a normal business and never will be.

Good on Auckland City for acting responsibly to minimise the harm for the great majority of the city. Mr Barnett has done his job in sponsoring this flawed law and should keep out of the council's business. And every concerned Auckland resident and ratepayer should have a say on the proposed bylaws, which are open for feedback.

* Scott McMurray is communications director of the Maxim Institute, a social research and policy organisation. He was responding to: