Page 4600 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 15 December 1993
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companies in the ACT have deemed sex workers to be high risk and have offered workers compensation premiums of 20 per cent and over. In Victoria, the Government set the premiums for workers in the sex industry at 1.6 per cent, and in the Northern Territory, where it is a free enterprise system, it is approximately 12 per cent. Nurses and doctors, who probably have a similar risk factor, are insured at about 5 per cent. Why is there this discrimination against workers in the sex industry? It is probably because insurance agents are not aware that, with existing controls on the industry, the health risks are minimal.
There also exists a very worrying prejudice based on a societal judgment that those working in the sex industry should expect violence and injury from their customers as part of their job. It is appropriate that insurance companies use a range of statistics on which to base their premiums, provided that those statistics are valid and not based on moral judgments. That is what we would expect. In many cases, brothel owners' response to the insurance problem has been not to take out cover by deeming all their staff to be self-employed, and it seems to me that that was not the intention of the Bill that passed through this house.
My proposal to amend the Discrimination Act to include the words "profession, trade, occupation or calling", ironically enough, paves the way for those in the sex industry to comply with the Government's demand for workers compensation as well as assisting in the arenas of the courts and the community where human rights and justice have been denied through discriminatory practices and ignorance. After all, that is what the Discrimination Act is about. The Discrimination Act has contributed a great deal to the just treatment of many people in our community who were discriminated against for their race, religion, marital status, sexuality and so on. This amendment addresses the injustices endured by those who are discriminated against simply because of their previous occupation.
Debate (on motion by Mr Connolly) adjourned.
SUBORDINATE LAWS (AMENDMENT) BILL 1993
MR MOORE (10.41): I present the Subordinate Laws (Amendment) Bill 1993.
Title read by Clerk.
MR MOORE: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This is a very simple mechanical Bill that provides the opportunity for members not only to be able to disallow subordinate legislation but also to amend it, and I would like to give one example to members to illustrate why I think this is necessary. Madam Speaker, you may recall that I presented in this house a Bill to amend some regulations to do with insulation. I have no intention of reflecting on how the house voted in that situation but, rather, to use it as an example. In the case of the insulation, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee drew attention to the fact that this was effectively a Henry VIII clause - I believe that that is the correct term - where the department not only made a piece of law but also immediately passed the power back to the Minister so that the Minister could change it. That is a particularly cumbersome method of dealing with subordinate legislation.
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