Page 730 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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from non-English-speaking backgrounds, and it was felt important that they be apprised of the sorts of employment conditions that should apply, the sorts of health standards and so forth that they should expect. A recommendation was made—I believe by the AIDS Action Council but certainly by one of the groups—that a similar type of service was operating elsewhere in the country. It is important that workers, no matter where they are working, are aware of their rights and what their expectations should be and what is available to them. Therefore we put forward that recommendation to the ACT government.
We have talked about sole operators no longer being registered with ORS. No doubt there will be ongoing debate about this one. The police raised this issue, and when they were talking a lot about the illegal industry, I remember the Chief Police Officer saying, “If you look in the paper on a Saturday, there are a lot more advertisements advertising certain services than you’d find the number of sole operators sitting out at ORS.” That is what is talked about with the illegal industry.
There was wide-ranging evidence given by a number of operators as to why people do not feel comfortable or safe in putting their names on the register. It was to do with privacy and so forth. One of the other issues was the fact that sex workers tend to be very transient, moving around the country. To register for one week and then go somewhere else in the country and not use their registration for the rest of the year, people were bypassing that. That is not necessarily a good thing and means they are working illegally.
We took those things on board. We made a recommendation, and that followed on from the issue of the sole operators and a single person working in the suburbs. Many views were put forward. The occupational health and safety views were put forward, the fact that there are other jurisdictions in Australia—I think Tasmania would be an example of that—and certainly over in New Zealand where it is not limited to one person; it is anywhere from one to four people. We felt that two at this stage was where we felt that there could be some acceptance in the community around that, and, again, we have made a recommendation in that regard.
As I said, this was quite an extensive inquiry. Some great evidence was given. We also had expert evidence given by Dr Fiona David on her experiences. She is a researcher and an expert on human trafficking. There is that issue and there is that concern in the community around that conflation that sex work and the sex industry equals trafficking. We really need to tease apart some of those issues a bit and look at who is looking after what areas.
Human trafficking is an abhorrent and terrible thing. It is investigated at the commonwealth level by the AFP and also Immigration has a role in all of that. Of course, we all support a very strengthened, well-resourced role for them to play in that area. When we are looking at the local level, we certainly put in here that we wanted in the purchase agreement between the ACT government and ACT Policing a stronger focus on that area. Of course, we need to fight trafficking whenever we find it. But the Chief Police Officer gave evidence that at this stage it certainly had not come to their attention that this was a major issue in the ACT. I hope that we have the vigilance and the resources to ensure that it never becomes a major issue in the ACT.
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