United Future
Gordon Copeland

SPEAKING NOTES, PROSTITUTION REFORM BILL

It is not that I wish anything less than that for prostitutes. Rather my problem is rather that I want more.  When I speak of women prostitutes I am not just thinking of those already employed and as represented say by the Prostitutes’ Collective, but also of the young women who will, should this bill become law, be enticed by financial inducements to become prostitutes in the future.

Also I think it would be helpful if we were to focus on these women as individuals bearing in mind that as Nanaia Mahuta has pointed out to us, many of them – perhaps 50 percent – will be our beloved Maori women.

Women are created in the image and likeness of God.  They are endowed with that dignity, genius, and feminine mystique that rightly belongs to women.  They are rational and free beings called, together with men, to live in a communion of love. 

They are co-equal with, but complementary to men.  In marriage they along with men are called onto a unity of the two so that side by side and together they exist mutually one for the other.  It is through a sincere gift of themselves to that special other that both men and women move towards their self-realisation and self-discovery.

Sadly however the human race has, for thousands of years, battled against the tendency of men to dominate women.  This domination which is also negative for men has particularly severe ramifications for women.

Emancipation for both men and women finally means freedom from all forms of domination, exploitation and violence.  That is why in Sweden prostitution is officially acknowledged as a form of male sexual violence against women.

In that nation they have concluded that prostitution is a serious problem which is harmful not only to the women and men involved in the activity, but also to society at large.

I am prepared to predict here tonight in the New Zealand Parliament that Sweden is on the right side of history in this matter. 

The Swedish example seems likely to be followed by Finland, France and even The Netherlands  which is presently known as the “sex capital of Europe”.

By contrast the bill which you have before you tonight can in no sense be regarded as forwarded looking.  Rather it attempts to wind back the clock to a past dark Victorian style age in which society was prepared to permit and approve the sexual domination of women by men.

There is nothing in this bill which can be described as progressive or liberal.  Indeed, when you focus on the reality of the exploitation and domination of brothel keeping, procuring and pimping, it cannot even be described as libertarian but simply as libertine.

Therefore the essential question before Parliament tonight is whether we want to move New Zealand forward into a new age of healthy male – female relationships, or whether we want to take it back into the Dark Ages of male domination and sexual exploitation. 

In this regard I must in particular appeal to all the women in this Parliament, but also to the men, and ask each person to examine their own conscience regardless of whether they are or not, for example, members of the Executive or, like myself simply first-term novice MPs.

I am, as a man, daring to raise these issues in the House tonight because I have received moving submissions along these lines from the following organisations:

·        Women’s Health Action Trust

·        NZ Federation of Graduate Women

·        International Coalition against Trafficking in  Women

·        Maxim Institute

·        The Commissioner of the Salvation Army

·        Cardinal Thomas Williams, Archbishop of Wellington and Metropolitan of the Catholic Church in New Zealand

·        Christchurch City Council

·        Society for the Promotion of Community Standards

·        Catholic Women’s League

·        Association of Catholic Women

·        Catholic Health Group

·        ECPAT NZ (The global Network to Protect Children against Commercial Sexual Exploitation)

I  also want to bring to the House’s attention an article written by Debbie Hager and Annah Pickering of the Prostitutes’ Collective.  They are a vested interest group who support rather than oppose this bill and yet their article contains the following and I quote:

“The bill retains the provisions about brothel keeping and living off the earnings of others.”  However the bill of course does no such thing.  It does exactly the opposite.  I quote further from the article:

“this legislation provides access to massage parlours and other premises by health  and safety personnel.”  Again this is wrong. The present bill in fact repeals the Massage Parlours Act. 

Accordingly, it would appear, that the Prostitutes’ Collective who no doubt, as I do, support the general purposes of this bill as per Clause 3 do not understand that it actually repeals the crimes of brothel keeping, pimping and procuring and the Massage Parlours Act 1978.

This is understandable since these very important repeals, which are at the heart of this bill, are buried away in Clause 10 in just a couple of lines.

I find that confusion about the purpose of the bill to be common right across New Zealand.  As I said previously and repeat now, I think it is wrong for Parliament to be repealing brothel keeping, pimping and procuring, and indeed the Massage Parlours Act 1978 by the stealth of the progressive-sounding purposes of Clause 3, when the decriminalisation of those highly exploitive activities is in fact regressive.

The predominant purpose of this bill as set out in Clause 3, namely, to safeguard the human rights of sex workers and to protect them from exploitation is in direct contradiction to the provisions of Clause 10 which repeal brothel keeping, soliciting and procuring.  For that reason alone this bill can not be allowed to stand because it is not only internally inconsistent, but indeed contradictory.

I therefore find it difficult to believe that anybody  on the basis of reason and common sense could support the bill as it has been presented to us in this House.

Mr Chairman I want to suggest a way forward in this matter that the House might be prepared to consider.  Two options are  open to us.  Either we can vote to defeat this bill on its Third Reading or we can attempt to clean it up through the SOP process by eliminating at least its greater evils.

If you are of that mind I suggest that you vote in favour of the following SOPs:

1.  That of Dr Wayne Mapp which puts in place some commonsense limitations surrounding soliciting but retains brothel keeping, procuring and pimping as crimes under the Crimes Act.

2.  My SOP which reinstates the Massage Parlours’ Act 1978.

3.  My SOP which bans the advertising of commercial sexual services

4.  Lianne Dalziel’s SOP which revokes the visa of international students who work in the prostitution industry.

This in my view would at least be a harm minimisation strategy.  Or alternatively, you could of course, as I will, also vote in favour of Dianne Yates’ SOP penalising the clients of prostitutes following the lead provided by Sweden or Marc Alexander’s penalising both clients and providers.