GEORGINA BEYER (NZ Labour--Wairarapa): I am very pleased to be able to stand and support the passage of this bill. I also support it going to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I would like to congratulate my colleague Tim Barnett on bringing this matter forward to Parliament for discussion. I thank all of those, including the previous speaker, who have spoken positively so far on this bill proceeding to select committee. It needs to be acknowledged that Mr Barnett has not been able to bring it to the House without the help of numerous others who are very concerned about the matter, one, of course, being the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective. Anne Tolley mentioned others.

I will take the liberty of assuming that I am the only member in this House who has had first-hand knowledge of the sex industry, having been a sex worker in the past, 20-odd years ago. Anne Tolley has just reiterated the matter of young people and what is included in this bill regarding coercion of children and their exploitation in the sex industry. I would have been covered by this bill at the time I was involved in the industry, at the ripe old age of 17. My circumstances for becoming involved are too numerous to explain right now. The important thing is to get the body of this bill discussed. But I would like to make a contribution at this point---and also in the future when the bill is reported back to the House, should it be sent off to a select committee.

I can give this House two very real examples of where injustice has occurred. The first one illustrates what the operator of an establishment such as a massage parlour, such as a strip club, such as a peep show, and those sorts of things, can do to someone like myself, as it was back in the late 1970s when I worked in an establishment here in Wellington City. We were paid such lousy wages, anywhere between $45 and $65 a week for working six nights a week, from 7.30 p.m. until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. That was the base wage we were given. We were actually encouraged to search for other forms of remuneration while we were in the establishment. Obviously, cracking it---as it was known to me then---or prostitution, was certainly highly regarded as being the way to earn the extra money we needed to survive legitimately. I was unable to access any other kind of State funding, such as the dole, to prevent me from going into this industry. However, because we were allowed to arrange transactions with clients who might well be within the establishment, we were the ones who were often approached for services to be rendered, and often we complied. We were allowed to use areas within the establishment for that transaction to occur. In doing so, we had to forfeit to our boss at the time a portion of our earnings, which were set by the owner of the establishment. The owner set the amount we should charge. I had no say over that. If I did not comply, I was out on the street.

Another matter of concern when it comes to prostitution is working off the street, which is quite dangerous and quite unprotected. That is exploitation. As a sex worker I had absolutely no right of recourse if I wanted to make a complaint about it; otherwise, it was "out the door". That was not really an option when, just like anybody else, one has outgoings that need to be covered.

Another aspect is one illustrated by my next example. Having been asked by a potential client if I would like to give service to him, I agreed. We duly went off to a place that was quite secretive, in a Wellington suburb, which I will not describe here, to conduct the business. We happened to be followed by some police, who summarily pulled us up and proceeded to separate me from the client. I never saw the client again. The client disappeared off the face of the earth. I can tell members that from my brief encounter with this person he seemed to be an ordinary, hard-working, heterosexual New Zealander who had decided he needed a little light relief, and I was able to provide that. What really got up my nose was that upon our separation and upon my arrest I was taken down to the Wellington Central Police Station, where I spent a considerable number of hours in the cells in most unpleasant conditions. That was on a Friday evening.

On the Monday morning I appeared before the judge in the District Court. I pleaded guilty, fined $50, was convicted of---I do not even know whether it exists on the statute book any more---frequenting with felonious intent, and deemed a rogue and a vagabond. We never got any justice from the point of view of the client being made responsible for having been the other party in the transaction, and therein lies a great injustice, as far as I am concerned. That will be addressed within the body of this bill.

This measure is about decriminalisation, as opposed to legalisation. Decriminalisation means repealing the laws relating to prostitution and making it subject to the same laws and controls that regulate other businesses. The advantages of this approach are that sex workers have the same status in law as their clients, with health promotion work taking place openly throughout the sex industry, labour laws and health and safety regulations being openly applied, and having the implicit acknowledgment that the costs of keeping prostitution illegal largely outweigh the gains. It also covers, as the previous speaker mentioned, the protection of children from exploitation in relation to prostitution.

One of the aims of the bill is to promote the welfare and occupational health and safety of sex workers. It is addressed by the removal of current legislation that criminalises prostitution, so bringing sex workers within the ambit of employment protections available to all other workers. Another aim is to create an environment that is conducive to public health, and this is really very, very important. That aim is addressed by requiring operators of brothels or commercial sex businesses to protect sex workers from disease by promoting and providing information on safer sex practices and the use of prophylactics. I think this will assist significantly in making sure that the sex industry is fully able to cooperate openly with safe-sex practices, which are so important, not just from the aspect of sexually transmitted diseases but certainly with regard to HIV/AIDS, which is of great concern globally. This is a positive aim of the bill.

I am trying to keep myself seemly because we are within the confines of a privileged position in this Chamber, but I would expect, and hope, that members may be able to give a contribution that offers an aspect different from one given by someone who has worked in the sex industry. Many thousands of sex industry workers in this country will be pleased to see this bill proceed. I certainly commend it to the House. I hope we get majority support for the bill to go past this first reading and be sent to a select committee.