Liberal brothel police to take sleaze out of sex
- From: The Daily Telegraph
- December 22, 2010 12:00AM
BROTHEL police would become a fixture and a new licensing authority would be set up under an O’Farrell government, as part of a proposed overhaul of the regulation of sex services in NSW.
The Opposition also plans to weed out organised crime from the sex industry if it wins the March state election.
Opposition local government spokesman Chris Hart- cher said yesterday legislating the changes would be an “early priority” for an O’Farrell government.
The Coalition’s new get-tough policy on illegal brothels follows a Daily Telegraph investigation last month which showed the Government had sat on critical sex industry statistics for eight months. The numbers showed Sydney had become the brothel capital of the South Pacific, with 271 legal brothels in just a third of the state’s council areas and many more illegal brothels.
There has been a huge increase in the number of brothels in recent years and “clusters” of sex premises in areas like Rydalmere and Clyde, in the Parramatta council area in Sydney’s west.
Current planning laws also allow virtually anyone to own a brothel without probity checks, allowing even crime figures to own sex premises.
Under the Opposition plans, trained compliance officers would be deployed to police council areas classified as brothel hot spots.
The funding for these so-called brothel police would be provided by new licence fees, which would be used to police illegal activity in the sex services industry.
A new body dubbed the Brothel Licensing Authority would attempt to weed out organised crime by determining the suitability and eligibility of applicants for sex premises. The fees it levied would be held in trust and used in the training of brothel compliance officers in “hotspot” areas like Parramatta, which has 20 legal brothels.
“If elected, we would be requiring councils in hotspot areas to have more compliance officers, and funding them through the authority,” Mr Hartcher said.
There has been criticism the current council officers patrolling brothels are little more than parking inspectors.
But Mr Hartcher said the new funding from the licence fees would be used to sharpen the skills of the new officers patrolling sex premises.
There would also be pressure on councils to keep a closer watch on brothels.
Mr Hartcher denied the Opposition was advocating a nanny state, saying it simply wanted a sex industry that operated within the law.
“We want them strictly controlled in the interests of public safety,” he said.
“We also want to prevent exploitation of workers, illegal immigration rackets, money laundering and organised crime. Where there’s money and sex, there’s always potential for crime and violence.”
Mr Hartcher said there was evidence of sex slavery even in legal brothels, with illegal methods being used to “keep women under control”.
Follow NAUWU on Twitter