Page 5254 - Week 12 - Thursday, 28 October 2010
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I was very disappointed—and I think that I can speak for most members of the committee—at the narrow scope of the attorney’s terms of reference, which seem to reflect almost entirely the issue about proof of age. That is a very important issue, but it is not the only thing that we need to look at when we are looking at a piece of legislation that has been operating unreviewed for such a long period of time. While we welcome the interest of the attorney in this, I think it is fair to say that I do not think that his amendments go far enough.
The amendment I have circulated is still general in nature, but it covers a whole range of other issues. The amendment says that, in reviewing the operation of the act, the committee should have regard to a range of issues including but not limited to the form and operation of the act; the regulation, enforcement and monitoring of commercially operated brothels; identifying regulatory options, including the desirability of requiring commercially operated brothels to maintain records of workers and relevant proof of age, to ensure that all sex workers are over the age of 18 years; the adequacy of, and compliance with occupational health and safety requirements for sex workers; any links with criminal activity; the extent to which unlicensed operators exist within the ACT; and any other relevant matters.
Most of those issues were touched on by the minister in his remarks, but his draft terms of reference do not pick them up. I think the amendment I have moved, which is the distilled views of the members of the committee, will give us the scope for a much more rounded inquiry.
The problem with the terms of reference as the attorney has proposed them is that, although it does start with “inquire into the operation of the Prostitution Act”, because it only really speaks about proof of age, it might send the message to members of the public that that is the only thing that we are interested in and it might actually limit the scope of submissions that we receive. I think we need to make it clear that, after 18 years, it is open for us to look at all matters in this legislation. We need to encourage members of the public to express their views on the full breadth of issues that arise when we discuss this matter. I commend the amendment to the Assembly, and also thank the minister for raising this matter today.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (11.11): I support the amendment that has been put forward by Mrs Dunne. This was a process of consensus and discussion within the committee. I believe the amendment captures the range of issues without excluding other issues that may arise. One of the key things that Mrs Dunne did pick up was to ensure that members of the public who may think about engaging with the inquiry have that level of detail or description in the terms of reference that will encourage those people to either put in a submission or to give some oral evidence to the inquiry. It is important that we have more comprehensive terms of reference in that way, of course—as is referred to in the first paragraph—understanding quite clearly that this is a review into the operation of the Prostitution Act. That was certainly something that the Attorney-General had wanted and had in his version of the terms of reference.
I believe that these terms of reference capture issues raised by the Attorney-General as well as those raised by members of the committee. I will be supporting Mrs Dunne’s
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