South Australian sex workers have no industrial workplace rights as their occupation is considered illegal under present law. Picture: Mike Burton Source: AAP

THE South Australian Parliament will again look at changing the laws around prostitution in the state.

Starting with a former Liberal attorney-general in the late 1970s and ending with another rebel Liberal, Mark Brindal in 2003, there have been six previous attempts to change the state’s prostitution laws.

The closest the Parliament came to making a change was in November 2000, when it came within a handful of votes of decriminalising prostitution.

South Australia is the only state in the nation that does not have some form of government control over the sex industry.

In 2000, the House of Assembly passed laws regulating prostitution by establishing what forms of sex work should be legal – such as brothels that complied with health and safety and planning laws – and those which should not.

Under the Bill, child prostitution and prostitution involving violence, intimidation and coercion, and drug use, would remain illegal, as would street prostitution.

But in the Legislative Council, the MLCs voted 12-7 to defeat the proposal, driving then minister Diana Laidlaw to tears as she described her colleagues as “gutless”.

An angry Democrat Sandra Kanck said the decision meant prostitutes had been “thrown to the wolves by Parliament”.

But that was the closest Parliament got and Mr Brindal’s later attempt fell at its first hurdle.

Since then, no one has been keen to tackle what is considered an issue which should be put in the “too hard” basket, even though the Police Commissioner Mal Hyde is on record as saying the state’s current laws need an urgent upgrade.

It has been left to Labor backbencher Steph Key, the woman who is almost regarded as the social conscience of the party, to propose a new Bill aimed at decriminalising prostitution. It’s an issue she has been working on since last year and today will take her proposed Bill to Caucus so it can be noted.

She hopes to introduce a Private Member’s Bill into the Parliament on October 20.

It has been a long process and Ms Key believes she has come up with a good compromise, a piece of proposed model which reflects the laws in NSW and New Zealand, where prostitution is regulated and decriminalised.

Under her model, no sex business can be carried out within 200m of any child-related centre such as a school or child-care centre, no people under the age of 18 are to be employed as sex workers and any conviction of a person for an offence relating to prostitution will be immediately “spent” and not retained on a person’s record. It also legalises streetwalking and the establishment of small brothels in suburban areas.

WORKING Women’s Centre director Sandra Dan believes there is a mood in the community for the sort of changes reflected in Ms Key’s Bill. Ms Dan says the centre’s interest is in those women who are most vulnerable in the workplace.

“And we would certainly put women who do sex work in that category, not because of the stigma of the work, but because they have no industrial rights as workers,” she says. All the parties allow a conscience vote on the issue of legalising, or decriminalising, prostitution.

This makes it hard to gauge what support or opposition there will be for Ms Key’s Bill. Certainly, in the Lower House, there will be a hard core of Labor MPs from the Right who will oppose it, as there will be from the conservative wing of the Liberal Party.

Ms Key believes the opposition within her own party is likely to be muted and says there has been support for decriminalisation of the sex industry at ALP conventions. She has been holding seminars and workshops on her proposed Bill and has been quite heartened by the variety of people across Parliament who have gone to the seminars and taken part.

“Over the past year there has been a lot of openness to finding out about the industry,” she says.

While there is a chance the Bill could pass through the Lower House, passage in the Upper House – the chamber where it was defeated last time – is very problematical.

It will face strong opposition from Family First and MPs from both sides. Family First’s Robert Brokenshire says his party cannot support decriminalisation and favours strong powers for the police to combat criminal elements controlling the sex industry.

“It’s not only the prostitution but also the drug dealing and other crimes that go along with it,” he says. “It is a fairly slippery slope if you go down the licensing model path.

“In Victoria, where they have licensing of brothels, a lot of backyard brothels have sprung up and there is no protection for the girls who work in them.”

Port Adelaide Mayor Gary Johanson, who will stand as an independent candidate in the Port Adelaide by-election, shares Mr Brokenshire’s misgivings, especially in relation to streetwalkers.

He says the council has had many complaints from young females walking down Hanson Rd or going to the shops at Arndale who had been approached by men seeking sexual favours. He believes legalising street prostitution will only make this situation worse.

The last attempt to decriminalise prostitution ended in tears and angry recriminations. There is little to suggest the same will not happen this time around.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/round-seven-for-south-australian-prostitution-laws/story-e6frea83-1226147315120