Aroney, Eurydice; Crofts,Penny --- "How Sex Worker Activism Influenced the Decriminalisation of Sex Work in NSW, Australia." [2019] UTSLRS 3; (2019) 8(2) International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 50

Last Updated: 21 September 2020

How Sex Worker Activism Influenced the Decriminalisation of Sex Work in NSW, Australia.

In 2015, Amnesty International joined over 200 sex worker organisations in calling for nations to adopt decriminalisation of sex work. Despite this, only two jurisdictions in the world, New Zealand and New South Wales (Australia), have successfully implemented this approach. This article examines the role that sex worker activists played in sex work law reform in NSW through their representative organisation, the Australian Prostitutes Collective (NSW). The APC produced and submitted ground breaking research to the Select Committee of the NSW Legislative Assembly on Prostitution (1983-86) whose recommendations laid the foundation for the decriminalisation of sex work in NSW. This article contributes to a developing history of the contribution of sex worker activism to law reform. It explores why it is so important that sex worker voices are included in the process of reform, and how meaningful consultation with sex workers helped shape and invoke a radical policy and legal transformation.

Authors: Eurydice Aroney and Penny Crofts
Corresponding author Eurydice Aroney, University of Technology Sydney PO Box 123. Broadway NSW 2007. Australia.
Mobile [phone].
[e-mail]

Eurydice Aroney is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her award winning audio documentaries chart the radical and unique story of the sex workers rights movement in NSW. Eurydice is a member of Scarlet Alliance, Australia’s peak national sex worker representative organisation and a former member of the Australian Prostitutes Collective.

Dr Penny Crofts is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Technology Sydney. She is an international expert on criminal law, models of culpability and the legal regulation of the sex industry. Many of her recommendations for the legal regulation of brothels have informed Parliamentary debates, influenced council planning policies and shaped proposed law reforms.

How Sex Worker Activism Influenced the Decriminalisation of Sex Work in NSW, Australia.

Introduction

Through a presentation of a snapshot of time this article explores the significance of sex worker activism and engagement with law reform processes to accomplish and sustain meaningful reforms.^[1] New South Wales (NSW), Australia is one of two jurisdictions in the world to have successfully implemented and sustained the decriminalisation of sex work (Abel, Fitzgerald and Healy 2010).^[2] Notwithstanding its limited adoption, the decriminalisation of sex work is endorsed by human rights bodies such as Amnesty International, The Lancet medical journal, and over 200 sex worker organisations globally. Our research is noteworthy because it shows how the association between sex workers and the NSW Select Committee in the mid 1980’s contributed to the current NSW legal and regulatory framework of decriminalisation.
It is important to note that the decriminalisation of sex work in NSW has been a process rather than a sudden transformation. It began in 1979 with the removal of penalties for street based sex work and it was not until 1995 that the decriminalisation of brothels was accomplished. The Committee was appointed to look at possible regulatory approaches to sex work. At the same time, sex workers, invigorated by the 1979 legislative reforms and its effects, began to unite and organise. In what follows, we examine the tense but often mutually advantageous connection between sex workers and the Committee. We do this through an analysis of sex worker movement archives, Hansard reports and the Select Committee Final Report.^[3] Our analysis of the archives is consistent with arguments by Tiefer (2018) that academics have a responsibility to increase scholarship ‘about activism and advocacy how-to, why and what-for’ to remedy society’s problems with sexuality’ (Tiefer 2018). By drawing attention to a sex worker movement archive that chronicles an almost unique narrative - the contribution of sex worker activists in developing workable and enduring policy - we aim to show how this collaborative approach between government and sex worker activists helped to achieve social justice and enduring law reform.

Although our research centres on events that took place over thirty years ago, the meaningful presence of sex worker voices in the law reform process remains exceptional.^[4] Instead, sex work law reform is most frequently endorsed without the input of those most affected and in a moralistic register asserting an aim to protect (or punish) women (Wagenaar and Altink 2012; van der Melen and Durisin 2008, (Munro and Scoular, 2012)).^[5] For example, in their recent text Designing Prostitution Policy, Wagenaar, Amesberger and Altink (2017: 33-42) argue that prostitution policy in Europe has been ‘morality driven’ with fierce debates driven by a coalition of radical feminists and Christian and social democrats who have argued, amongst other things, that sex work is an inherent abuse of women, sex workers are victims of socially and morally tainted clients, women are primarily forced by organised crime, and that sex worker organisations themselves are pimp lobbies.^[6] Similarly, in her analysis of major Canadian prostitution law reform initiatives during the 1980s and 1990s, Jeffrey (2004) found that morality played a role in policy formation across this whole period especially where it applied to street based sex work. She argues that when the Conservative government adopted the controversial Bill C-49 in 1985 which criminalised communication between clients and sex workers they:

[d]rew on a paternalistic gender discourse that posed the nuisance of street solicitation as a threat to ‘good’ women who lived in those neighbourhoods and may be subject to harassment. In this discourse then, only “good” women who lived up to the code of decent female behaviour deserved protection by the state from sexual threats. (Jeffrey 2004: 101)

These legal and regulatory conditions reflect and reproduce “moral stigma and the cluster of associated stigmatic assumptions that positions sex workers not only as ‘other’ and not like us, but a toxin to be eliminated from the social body” (Bruckert, Chabot and POWER 2010). This moralistic approach involves law reformers speaking for and about sex workers, rather than being informed by and based on the concrete lived experiences of sex workers and the kind of reforms that sex workers actually want and need (Neave 1988: 202-213).

The NSW Select Committee was not immune to the widely held moralistic view that in a perfect society prostitution should not exist (Rogan 1986: xxv). This is demonstrated in the first sentence of the introduction to its Final Report that asserts that “[p]rostitution is not endorsed by the Committee and no recommendation in this report is directed to the furtherance of this dangerous and undesirable trade” (Rogan 1986: xxv). Despite this, the Committee asserted that morality had little to do with good policy design. For instance it took pains to express awareness of the “element of intellectual disturbance and disquiet surrounding the subject which most contributes to the fugitive character of the trade and simultaneously hampers attempts to deal with it effectively” (Rogan 1986: xxv),^[7] and asserted a desire to “change social attitudes” (Rogan 1986: ix). The Committee aspired to go beyond making recommendations and saw its role as providing “a forum for public discussions of a controversial subject where issues had all too frequently been clouded by social embarrassment” (Rogan 1986: x). To this end it embarked on a series of hearings (both public and private), drew upon existing research, and commissioned new research. The Chair of the Select Committee, Pat Rogan, commented that “while none of us on the Committee expected that the fugitive trade would suddenly blossom into full and frank disclosure, such open public discussion did appear to stimulate an increased flow of valuable information to the Committee from within the ranks of those directly involved in prostitution” (Rogan 1986: x). These ‘ranks’ were organised and led by the Australian Prostitutes Collective (NSW) which emerged in response to the same tensions that warranted the government inquiry.^[8]
In this article we demonstrate how the activities of the APC, which became part of the law reform process, disrupted the construction of sex workers as “victims” lacking choice or agency (van der Meulen, Durisin and Love 2013; Wagenaar, Amesberger and Altink 2017 (Munro and Scoular, 2012)). In this we confirm Wagenaar’s (2017) insight that the involvement of sex worker organisations in “authentic dialogue” with governments fosters an escape from the “ideology driven” approaches.^[9] Wagenaar’s idea of “authentic dialogue” is significant, as this emphasises not just telling sex workers what is good for them, or allowing them to express their views, but actually listening to sex workers critique and recommended legal and regulatory approaches and including them in the formation of policy.
Our focus on the time period from 1983 until 1986 contributes to a history of involvement of sex workers in the law reform process. This was a time during which sex workers developed political skills and made meaningful contributions to the Select Committee through the production of original primary quantitative and qualitative research of their working conditions. The sex workers also united to form the APC to articulate a clear conception of the kinds of reforms that they wanted.
The Final Report was clearly strongly influenced by the involvement of sex workers and sex worker activists. Almost every page of the Final Report includes quotations from individual workers and the APC, and primary research produced by the APC. The APC and its allies were essential to instigating and then sustaining law reforms.
We begin by describing our research materials and approach, then move to the context and regulatory framework prior to the appointment of the Select Committee. We go on to explore the emergence of sex worker voices as individuals and as a collective, and highlight the ways in which the Select Committee invited and relied upon sex worker activist led research along with sex worker lived experience and activist contacts. In our conclusion we include a summary of the Select Committee’s recommendations. More broadly this article explores why it is so important that sex worker voices are included and how their voices have been included in sex work law reform.

Methodology

The methodology of this article was the examination, collation and close reading of private archives as well as a substantial body of primary source materials. Our main source was the sex worker activist archives from individual members of the APC.^[10] One source is available in a library collection (Homburg 1970-1986) others are private and yet to be made available for public access. The APC archives include questionnaires, summarised reports and submissions, correspondence, meeting notes, pamphlets, and APC member’s media representations. These documents revealed the organising principles, aims, motivations, strategies, activities, challenges, methods, and research of the Australian Prostitutes Collective. The authors accessed the bulk of these archives thanks to personal links with members of the APC. We undertook a content analysis of the archives in order to gain a sense of APC interventions during the time of the Committee.
A primary source of these archives was the author and researcher Roberta Perkins, one of the APC’s principal organisers. Perkins became involved with the sex worker community in 1981 when she spent two months interviewing transsexual showgirls, strippers and sex workers in the bars and clubs of Kings Cross for research for her honours’ thesis (eventually published as The Drag Queen Scene (Perkins 1983)). Over the next two decades Perkins, with her co-researchers and collaborators (including current and former sex workers, social workers, students, LGBTI activists and academics), published a vast compendium of original research collected from surveys and interviews with sex workers and non-sex workers involved in all aspects of the sex industry (Perkins 1983; Perkins and Bennett 1985; Perkins 1991; Perkins et al. 1994; Perkins and Lovejoy 2007). When Roberta Perkins passed away in June 2018 her archive was bequeathed to the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP). Her archive includes documents produced by many individuals who were involved in the collective and consists of nine large archival boxes of text-based materials. At the time of writing most of these are in a disorganised state. While the authors became familiar with the archive contents, it was beyond the scope of this research to organise and categorise these to a degree where we can confidently point to the location of individual references for researchers to pursue. Perkins drew upon and referred to many of these archival documents in her published books and research papers. At the time of writing the NSW State Library is in communication with SWOP with the intention of adding Perkins and other APC archives to the libraries collection.
Although the replication of our methodology is limited by the uncertain state and future location of the bulk of the APC archive, there is value in our ‘early intervention’ into its contents. Prominent researchers have argued that there needs to be a greater engagement between activists and academics for social justice and reform to take place in the area of sexualities (Altman 2018; Weeks 2018; Tiefer 2018). Many documents in the archive remain for further analysis - especially those that go beyond the timeframe examined in our study.
Our methodology examined the archive and then reduced the sheer number of materials by restricting our analysis to a specific point in time – the period just prior to and encompassing the Select Committee (1983-1986). This time period is highly significant as it encompassed the impact on sex workers of the 1979 reform, the origins and the formation of the APC, and the mobilisation of the sex industry and it allies in responding and contributing to the Select Committee whose recommendations shaped decriminalisation and continue to structure contemporary sex work law in NSW. The archive also included media reports and magazine articles and submissions to the Committee. Transcripts of Committee testimonials were examined in detail.^[11] We also drew upon Hansard Reports of political debates.^[12] We correlated archive materials with the Final Report in order to provide some indication of the extent of influence by the APC on the Committee’s findings.

Legal and social context of the Select Committee
The Select Committee was appointed after a patchy history of regulating and media controversy. Prior to 1979, street-based sex workers were fined and often imprisoned for soliciting and loitering under the Summary Offences Act 1970 (NSW). In 1979, reforms were enacted to repeal the two core offences of soliciting for the purposes of prostitution and being an owner who knowingly permits premises to be used for prostitution (keeping a brothel). The reforms recognised “that the present law discriminates unfairly against the prostitute as compared to the customer, and second, that wherever possible the law should be directed at preventing and punishing exploitation” (Parliament of New South Wales 1979: 4923). The impetus for these reforms came from civil liberty groups, feminist organisations and the newly elected Labor government concerned about the overreach of the criminal law, the discriminatory impact of these offences and associated police corruption.^[13] Throughout this time there was tension between public order and crime, and problems associated with the restrictive legal approach, particularly corruption (Egger and Harcourt 1991). The repeal of prostitution offences in 1979 had the advantages of decreasing police corruption and increasing independent sex work (Rogan 1986). However, the 1979 reforms were incomplete. For instance, although it was no longer an offence to own a premise used for prostitution it was still an offence for owners, managers, receptionists or others such as family members to ‘live off the earnings’ of prostitution. In addition, police argued that the repeal of offences had resulted in an increase of public disorder. The police used other offences and powers to replace those that had been repealed, directly undermining the intent of the reforms. For example, according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics between 1976 to 1978 arrests of females for ‘offensive behaviour’ only numbered 1,663. From 1979 to 1981, following decriminalisation, the number of females arrested for ‘serious alarm and affront’ increased to 10,480 under the Offences in Public Places Act (Perkins 1991: 142).
The 1979 reforms also had unintended consequences for those working indoors. Women who chose to work in their homes independently could no longer be arrested for ‘habitually using premises for prostitution’, but they could still be evicted from rental properties under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1948 simply because prostitution was taking place on the premise. In addition, from the early 1980’s, Sydney City Council targeted small female run brothels by acting on by-laws that prohibited commercial activities in residentially zoned areas. Notices were served by the council on a number of residences that had operated without complaint for many years in the traditional red-light district of East Sydney. These and other effects of the repeal of the Summary Offences Act 1979 on sex workers have been researched in detail and were cited in the Final Report (Perkins 1991: 139-145; Travis 1986). The research confirms that the police, encouraged by a small group of determined residents and supported by City of Sydney Council, were not only successful in finding ways to circumnavigate the intention of the 1979 repeal but were ultimately effective in pressuring the NSW Government to respond to their concerns with the introduction of a new offence in 1983 applying to street sex work in residential zones under the Prostitution Act 1979.

As a consequence of ongoing tensions and media controversy about the regulation of prostitution, the Government appointed the bipartisan NSW Legislative Assembly Select Committee “[t]o investigate and report upon the public health, criminal, social and community welfare aspects of prostitution in New South Wales” (Rogan 1986). The membership of the Select Committee changed over time, but throughout all members were male (Rogan 1986: xii). Both sides of politics were well represented, for example Rogan, Don Browman and Fred Miller were Labor, whilst Peter Collins and John Dowd were members of the opposition Liberal Party. Dowd strongly supported the reinstatement of police powers and would go on to become Attorney General in 1988. Collins was Leader of the Opposition between 1995 to 1998 when decriminalisation of brothels was introduced as a consequence of the Wood Royal Commission.
The Select Committee was appointed in response to circumstances particular to NSW, but it was not the only state to consider law reform in this period. In the 1980’s and 90’s seven from eight Australian States considered prostitution law reform and four went on to instigate changes, though none took the path of full decriminalisation.^[14]

Collective and individual voices of sex workers

The APC (initially the Collective of Australian Prostitutes) was founded at a public meeting on July 13^th 1983 at the Wayside Chapel in Sydney just four months after the Committee was appointed. In its first public statement the APC confirmed that it was conceived “in response to the mounting pressure in Sydney by residents, council and police to displace us (sex workers) and to restrain our trade to commercial areas only” (Perkins and Bennett 1985: 283). Prior to its formation, APC members had already recognised the Committee as a target for strategic intervention and had begun distributing questionnaires to sex workers for the purposes of collecting data for their submissions (Perkins 1991).
The APC saw itself as part of a growing international movement of sex workers calling for the decriminalisation of prostitution (Delacoste and Alexander 1988).^[15] A printed flyer titled Power to the Prostitutes entreated Sydney’s sex workers to attend the inaugural meeting with the claim that “Prostitutes in France, England, America and Canada have stood up against police bullies and resident action groups and WON. If they can do it so can we.” The APC then listed the organisation’s main demands: the removal of all laws used against prostitutes and the setting up of a legal advice, health and 24-hour child minding service for (sex) workers (APC 1983). The APC then wrote a (15,000 word) History and Manifesto of The Australian Prostitutes Collective that declared their ambitions for the immediate future: “The APC as a group is in a key position to offer the world some of the most important analyses in prostitution ever produced in this hitherto shadowy subculture” (Perkins 1985). As we argue below, this rhetoric was not totally hyperbolic, as the APC was indeed a pioneering force. But it was not in fact the first time sex workers had attempted to organise. According to Frances and Gray “from the 1970s onwards prostitutes began to publish newsletters, form collectives and push for unionisation and the support they received from the women’s movement and civil libertarians would have inspired many to continue to battle for workplace rights” (Frances and Gray 2007: 308). It was a time of radical and social reform in general and this had political consequences as well. The election of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in May 1976 ended over a decade of conservative rule with a commitment to ending discrimination against women. One of its first moves was to set up a Women’s Co-ordination Unit and a Women’s Advisory Council that immediately set about researching prostitution in NSW (Frances and Gray 2007).^[16]
Despite this commitment to reform, our research indicates that sex workers continued to have great difficulty in gaining an audience with government and policy advisors. For example, former sex worker, brothel owner, and the spokesperson for the Prostitution Law Repeal Association, Margaret Dee, told ABC Radio in November 1976 that she was having trouble getting through to the government:

“Can’t get through to them at all. I have telephone numbers and I have spoken to them on the phone and ‘yes we’ll see you we’ll call you back we’ll have an appointment, talk to you’ nothing – nothing comes of it we’re just ignored” (AM Program 1976).
As Margaret Dee pointed out, criminalisation of the industry meant that there were considerable costs attached to speaking out as a sex worker. As a consequence she called on the NSW government to provide an amnesty on arrests and penalties for prostitution related offences so that sex workers could speak freely about law reform. She had closed her small brothel because as someone who was ‘living off the earnings’ of prostitution she was at risk of being charged. As she explained to ABC radio in foregoing her livelihood she was now “free to be able to speak on behalf of the girls who can’t speak”. Margaret Dee was clear about the kind of reform that sex workers wanted: “Certainly it’s got to be decriminalised and that means total repeal of the law, right off the statute books forever” (AM Program 1976). It is not known whether Dee or any other sex workers finally connected with the Women’s Advisory Committee. Nevertheless, with the removal of the threat of criminal sanctions for street-based sex workers in 1979, ‘the girls who couldn’t speak’ found their voices and began to use them.
Donovan and Harcourt’s research demonstrates that the effects of decriminalisation on NSW sex workers (following the 1979 reforms) were not only liberalising but also empowering:

A climate of decriminalisation gave the participants within the sex industry the ability to organise and helped to reduce the traditional power difference between sex worker and client (Donovan and Harcourt 1996: 64-65).
This was particularly important when HIV/AIDS emerged, because sex workers were given the task by government of educating clients and the industry in general about the importance of safe sex. Donovan and Harcourt describe how the “skeletal” government funding of Australian sex worker community groups in the 1980s to 1990s “greatly enhanced their ability to organise” and gave them “a degree of legitimacy” (Donovan and Harcourt 1996: 65). This was conferred in 1986 when the NSW state and federal governments pre-empted the NSW Select Committee recommendations and funded the APC, making it the first community-based sex worker organisation in Australia, and possibly the world, to receive government funding (Donovan and Harcourt 1996: 64). This decision was more to do with the emergence of HIV/AIDS than it was to do with law reform, but it was an acknowledgement by government that the support and expertise of the APC was crucial in preventing the further emergence of HIV/AIDS in the community (Sendziuk, 2003).
The APC and the Select Committee also operated in the context of second wave feminism.^[17] A key method of second wave feminism was standpoint feminism,^[18] drawing upon Marxist insights about the influence of inequalities upon knowledge production. The idea of standpoint feminism is that knowledge is socially situated and marginalised standpoints offer epistemic advantages (Collins 1990). This method emphasises women’s perspectives and experiences as a starting point for inquiry (Harding 2004: 21). On this basis, women are knowing subjects rather than merely objects that are known by others. Standpoint theory asserts that those who are marginalised and relatively invisible from the vantage point of the epistemologically privileged become conscious of their social situation with regard to power and oppression and begin to find a voice. In articulating personal experiences, sex workers became increasingly aware that their individual predicaments were all too common. This is a collective process of recognition and acknowledgment (Harding 2004; Frances and Gray 2007).^[19]
In accordance with the insights of standpoint feminism, the government’s Women’s Advisory Committee ostensibly adopted a policy of wide-ranging consultation. Despite this, sex workers were not initially included or invited to take part in the law reform process. It was not until the process of decriminalisation began in 1979 that sex workers began to gain the confidence to properly organise and take an active role in the public domain.

Funding also assured other developments closely aligned to the collective’s wider goals. APC members were now able to appoint staff and rent premises where those involved in the industry could come for legal advice and support. This gave the organisation a secure location where it could hold staff and community meetings and run information and training sessions in skills from self-defence to writing a funding application, and it enabled the organisation to develop resources for public education campaigns. It was from this location that the APC developed and operated its safe sex ‘outreach’ services to sex workers across NSW (Hunter A 1990 "Sex Workers and Aids an Introduction to the Issue" National Aids Bulletin June 1990. Page 12 &13).

Funding also enabled a transient population of sex workers to be represented by authorised peers. Prior to funding, APC members were seen as spokespersons for an activist organisation. As a consequence of funding, APC spokespeople represented the sex worker community and (when it suited them) the NSW and Federal Departments of Health. This enhanced the APC’s legitimacy and awarded them a degree of authority when dealing with the media, recalcitrant brothel owners and clients, and the police. Thirdly, and of particular relevance for our research, funding signalled the beginning of a formal collaboration between sex workers and policy makers. Although the process of decriminalisation was still in its initial phase, the funding of a sex worker organisation at this time demonstrated a willingness on the behalf of sex workers and policy makers to engage in “authentic dialogue” which according to Wagenaar et al. can “only be achieved in situations of face-to face dialogue” (Wagenaar, Amesberger and Atlink 2017: 247). As was the case for other Australian sex worker organisations, funding meant that the APC was now better equipped to develop their strategies that included political activism toward law reform. Decriminalisation enabled them to emerge from the shadows, organise and rally around a specific and significant target – the Select Committee.

The Impact of Sex Workers in the Final Report of the Select Committee

Sex workers took part in the Select Committee process as individuals and collectively through the APC. Sex workers were interviewed, provided inspection tours of brothels and other sex work locations, and addressed the committee and made oral and written submissions. To strengthen the weight of their submissions the APC, together with Terry Goulden and Garry Bennet from the Sydney’s Gay Centre, formed what became known as the Task Group on Prostitution, which in turn invited other groups, individuals and organisations to contribute their own research and observations on sex workers. This culminated in 21 separate submissions from the Task Group totalling over 130,000 words to the Select Committee. These submissions were later edited and published (Perkins and Bennett 1985). Perkins own research benefited from her academic connections and along with a team of Sydney University social work students, and then research student Kerry Carrington,^[20] who collected and compiled primary data through surveys and in-depth interviews with over 130 sex workers (Rogan 1986: xvi – xviii).
The Committee split its findings into ten chapters. The chapter headings give some idea of the breadth of the 355 page Report: A profile of the prostitution trade in NSW; A description of those living off the earnings of prostitution; The estimated size of the trade; The demand for prostitution; Prostitution practice and law overseas; Social and community welfare aspects of prostitution; Health aspects of prostitution; Drug use by prostitutes; Criminal aspects of prostitution; Prostitution and the law.^[21] Throughout the Report, the Committee drew on original research by the APC. For example, in the first chapter providing a profile of the trade in NSW, the Committee cites three studies concerning street prostitution – two from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, and the third from Perkins’ original primary research:

In May and June 1983 Roberta Perkins, member of the Task Group on Prostitution, surveyed 121 inner-city street and brothel prostitutes. Her information relates to soliciting circumstances under the Prostitution (Amendment) Act 1983, whereby soliciting near a dwelling, school, church or hospital becomes an offence. It will be referred to as the ‘Perkins survey’. (Rogan 1986: 6)
The reference to her work as “Perkins survey” shows the extent of the reliance by the Committee on Perkins’ work in the Final Report.
One consequence of sex worker involvement with the Committee was that the Final Report differentiated between types of sex work. Chapter One describes the particular models of sex work and how these were impacted on by laws to different degrees. By distinguishing between street-based, brothel based, parlour and escort work the Select Committee was able to consider the benefits and disadvantages of each mode. For instance, the Report reveals that the primary advantage to street-based sex work is that it ‘entails minimal overhead costs’ and that sex workers ‘keep virtually all earnings’ (Rogan 1986: 8). The Report also acknowledges the significant amount of mobility between the different styles of work: ‘in a recent study of 50 female streetwalkers, for example, 37 individuals had prior prostitution -related job experience in other aspects of prostitution’ (Rogan 1986: 6). The Report thus recognises that sex workers have agency – they made calculated choices and these could change according to circumstances.^[22] The differentiation of types of sex work remains a key recommendation of the Brothels Taskforce and researchers, although it has not been widely implemented by local councils in NSW (Department of Planning 2001).
Not only are sex worker voices included in the report, they are heavily relied upon. For example, Debbie Homburg, a founding member of the APC, interviewed female sex workers in eight Sydney and one Canberra brothel during this period. Her research revealed that each worker paid shift money to police with the remainder then split fifty-fifty with the parlour (brothel) management (Homburg 1983: 1). The women were expected to work eight hours a day, six days a week, and had no right to refuse clients unless the men were diseased or violent and as Homburg recounted “The client is always right in most places, and unlike (on) the streets is not even required to wear a condom” (Homburg, D 1983, 1)). These accounts demonstrated to the Committee that some brothel-based workers were more at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other STDs than were street workers who were in a position to refuse clients if they did not use condoms.
The APC proved savvy in representing their research findings to media. They selectively chose to present new data that challenged myths and preconceptions about sex workers. For instance Perkins told the newspapers that her data demonstrated that up to forty four percent of sex workers had children, most were single mothers who regarded prostitution as a career, and that they were able to offer their children more security than non-sex working mothers because of their larger earnings. Additionally, they had more time available to spend with their families because of flexible working hours “it may shock people but when you weigh up everything you can’t help but reach a conclusion that prostitute mothers in the main make better mothers” (Daily Telegraph 1983).
Chapter Nine of the Select Committee Report is reflective of all the chapters in the Report – in that it relies upon individual interviews and submissions by the APC and the Task Group on Prostitution to provide research and context of the actual needs and working conditions of sex workers. Entitled ‘Criminal Aspects of Prostitution’, it is divided into three parts – prostitution related crime in general; allegations of police corruption and prostitution; and organised crime and patterns of ownership. The first section of the report details Perkins research that showed that sex workers were often victims of crime against their person and property and that ‘three out of nine women interviewed at length had experienced rape and bashings while at work’ (Rogan 1986: 220). Police witnesses provided information about the crimes committed by drug affected sex workers (including solicitation but extending to drug offences, theft and shoplifting). But this is supplemented with a sex worker explaining that she had tried to dry out but had not succeeded and had committed crimes to pay for her addiction. The Committee also received submissions from East Sydney residents about their fear of crimes such as muggings, robberies and fires due to prostitution.
In relation to police corruption, the Committee noted that most brothel owners were reluctant to discuss police corruption due to fear of repercussions. As a consequence, the Committee depended upon evidence by sex workers who asserted that the focus of police corruption had changed from individual street sex workers to the managers of brothels (Rogan 1986: 226). Individual sex workers also described the ways in which police asserted power. For example, one member of the APC (previously employed in a parlour) described this distinction:

I remember one detective who used to come in and try and boss us. He would come in and say who he was and where he was from and he would look around the premises and we would have to make sure all the beds were made, that the towels were neatly folded, that the talc was in the corner, that the showers and the curtains were all straight and that no French letters or durex were left lying around because that would indicate that it was a brothel and not a massage parlour, not a health studio (Roz Nelson, for the Task Group on Prostitution, in evidence 12 September 1983: 58). (Rogan 1986: 10)

The Select Committee concluded that decriminalisation would decrease corrupt police practices (Rogan 1986: 228).^[23]
The APC were also sought out for advice by other interested groups that in turn made submissions to the Committee such as the Northern Region of the Health Department, the Australian Legal Workers Group, the Interdepartmental Task Force on Drug Dependent Prostitutes and the Young National Party (Perkins and Bennett 1985: 286).^[24] This resulted in other governmental and non-governmental groups finding common cause with the APC. For example, the Final Report noted that the Women’s Advisory Council had drawn attention to the segregation and segmentation of the Labor party by gender – and that women were in low-paid and often part-time positions (Rogan 1986: 133). The paragraph then continues:

Perkins’ findings on prostitutes’ qualifications and skills should be read against the information that women in this State generally have fewer post-school qualifications than men. In 1981, 69 per cent of women over fifteen years had no post-school qualification as compared with 57 per cent of men. (Rogan 1986: 133)
The APC briefed the APC to the Women’s Advisory Committee to drawn their attention to common issues and concerns about the plight of women.
The Task Group on Prostitution had insisted on the repeal of all laws as affected sex workers (Perkins n.d.: 5). This required no further restrictions on street-based workers and no special zoning or regulation of brothels. Brothels and parlours were to be permissible under the same conditions as other businesses under planning and council zoning and individual sex workers who saw clients in their own homes should be left alone. Nevertheless the Select Committee was keen to know what type of regulatory control or specific zoning recommendations the APC would accept – especially as it applied to street-based sex work. After repeated and sustained questioning by the Select Committee about a compromise Perkins responded:

Our role here is to support the prostitutes’ view and their position. I know that you have got to do as mediators of a very difficult situation. You are getting feedback from residents and others who feel their lives are affected... We are making recommendations for people whose very lives depend on the type of business they are doing, whether they work on the streets in a brothel or in a parlour. If compromise is to be sought, it surely must be up to you. (Select Committee Upon Prostitution NSW 1983: 138)^[25]
This demonstrates the APC’s refusal to compromise for the Select Committee. Although Wagenaar et al (2017) have emphasised authentic dialogue, past a certain point, sex workers were unwilling to compromise.

The Final Recommendations of the Select Committee

The voices of sex workers were heard through a combination of submissions to the Select Committee and strategic interventions with the media. The Select Committee submitted its Final Report in 1986 with a long list of recommendations (Rogan 1986: xv-xxiv) summarised in the introduction to the Report as:

1. Brothels be subject not to criminal legislation but to planning requirements, the most important of which are that they not be permitted in residential levels, at street level in commercial shopping centres nor in areas which will result in public offence;^[26]
2. Controls be placed on the ownership of brothels;^[27]
3. Street soliciting be prohibited in residential areas and near a school, church or hospital;^[28]
4. Provision of criminal sanctions for those who use violence, coercion or other forms of exploitation in order to live on the earnings of prostitution;
5. Advertising of prostitution to be prohibited in the electronic media and limited elsewhere;
6. Changes to social welfare arrangements to make it less difficult for prostitutes to leave the trade and to make prostitution less of an alternative to those who may be forced to consider it as employment;
7. Health measures to reduce the incidence of sexually transmissible disease and drug abuse (Rogan 1986: xxix-xxx).^[29]

The APC greeted the report and its findings with mixed emotions but they were “basically pleased with the first 272 pages of the 286 page report” (Perkins 1986: 181). They were particularly pleased with the recommendations that related to the expansion of welfare services for women and youth, the repeal of sections within the Prostitution Act that referred to individuals ‘living off the earnings’, and the decriminalisation of brothels. However, the APC was unhappy with the Committee’s recommendations for a series of ‘controls’ framed by State Environmental Planning Policy that would restrict brothels to above ground only in commercial shopping areas and industrial zones. The APC also particularly objected to local councils deciding on development applications for brothels on the grounds that “the hypocrisy surrounding official dealings with the industry has nowhere been more evident than in the case of local government” (Perkins 1986: 182). The APC claimed that if there were no overriding regulation put in place to require councils to implement the original intentions of decriminalisation then councils would “reject development applications for brothels in moral terms” (Perkins 1986: 182). The APC asserted that there should be an overriding mechanism that would ensure that re-zoning by councils was not employed “as a mechanism for impeding prostitution in a municipality” (Perkins 1986: 182).^[30]

The Committee described its approach as “decriminalisation with controls” and stated that “reform will not occur overnight. Councils, police and the trade itself, but most importantly the community at large, need time to adjust themselves to proposals carried into law” (Rogan 1986: xxx). The Committee was correct – the most significant of these reforms – the decriminalisation of brothels – was not implemented until 1995.^[31] The Disorderly Houses Amendment Act 1995 was justified primarily in terms of public health and police corruption (in response to the Wood Royal Commission) and drew upon the findings of the Select Committee to justify the decriminalisation of brothels.

Conclusion
The recommendations of the Committee were a mix of the radical (including a complete overhaul of the welfare system to address the relative impoverishment of women compared to men) and conservative (such as the control of ownership and prohibition against advertising). It is necessarily impossible to prove that the involvement of individual sex workers and the APC influenced specific reforms. However, the prevalence of sex worker voices throughout Final Report provides some indication of their influence. The first page of the Report states:

Recently, prostitutes have become more political and outspoken as a group. In July 1983 a number of Sydney prostitutes, ex-prostitutes and supporters formed the Australian Prostitutes’ Collective (APC). The Collective describes itself as ‘part of an international link of prostitute organisations around the world, formed to provide support, information and expression networks for those working in the sex industry providing services for men’. It calls for decriminalisation. As author Eileen McLeod writes, such campaigns in Britain, on the Continent and in the USA have also pressed for decriminalisation of prostitution. Since the establishment of the APC in Sydney, branches have been formed in other states. (Rogan 1986: 1-2)
Sex workers and the APC were included as experts in the field rather than objects who were spoken for and about. The reliance upon evidence informed by the lived experience of sex workers enabled (and required) the Select Committee to shift away from moralistic (idealistic) discourse to deliver practical and realistic recommendations of law and policy reform.

Our focus of the time period around the NSW Senate Inquiry from 1983 until 1986 contributes to a history of involvement of sex workers in the law reform process. This was a time during which sex workers developed political skills and made meaningful contributions to the Select Committee through the production of original primary quantitative and qualitative research that linked their social disadvantage and appalling working conditions to ineffective and discriminatory laws and police corruption. The Select Committee itself reflected the reforming impulse of the time and provided an authoritative forum which actively welcomed sex worker involvement which in turn bestowed greater legitimacy to the proposed reforms of the Select Committee. The resulting decriminalisation of sex work in NSW is at the forefront internationally in terms of working conditions, health and safety and amenity impacts. If decriminalisation of the sex industry is to be enacted elsewhere then there is much to gain in learning from the achievements and disappointments in NSW.^[32]


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^[1] Throughout this article we emphasise a labour-based understanding and hence will use the term ‘sex work’. This is in accordance with contemporary literature emphasising sex work and employment, improving workplace conditions, unionisation, and sexual labour. See, for example, Bernstein E (2007) Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Sanders T (2005) It’s Just Acting: Sex Workers’ Strategies for Capitalizing on Sexuality. Gender, Work and Organization 12(4): 319-342. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0432.2005.00276.x. This is also reflective of the legal construction of brothels in NSW as legitimate businesses: see Crofts P (2006). A Decade of Licit Sex in the City. Local Government Law Journal 12: 5-15.
^[2] New Zealand is the other notable exception. For the stated purposes of the New Zealand reforms, see Prostitution Reform Act (NZ) (2003). As noted below, in NSW, street sex work remains partially criminalised with restrictions on where it can take place.
^[3] Henceforth the Select Committee Final Report will be referred to as the ‘Final Report’ in text.
^[4] For example, recent texts continue to emphasise the need for, and significance of, the inclusion of personal perspectives and experiences of sex work ‘as the basis for new and more nuanced conceptualizations for sex work’: van der Meulen, E, E M Durisin, and V Love (2013) Selling Sex: Experience, Advocacy, and Research on Sex Work in Canada. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1.
^[5] Radical feminists have contributed to the moralistic discourse by asserting that sex work reflects women’s sexual subordination to men and that all sex workers are victims: see for example, Farley M (2004) "Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart": Prostitution Laws Harm Women Even If Legalized or Decriminalized. Violence Against Women 10 (10): 1087-1125. DOI: 10.1177/1077801204268607; Farley M (2006) Prostitution, Trafficking and Cultural Amnesia: What We Must Not Know to Keep the Business of Sexual Exploitation Running Smoothly. Yale Law Journal of Feminism 18 (1); Barry K (1995) The Prostitution of Sexuality. New York: New York University Press.
^[6] See also Chrisje Brants who argues that “policy on prostitution in any country depends on the underlying ideology about the moral (un)acceptability of paid sex”: Brants C (1998) The Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance: Prostitution in Amsterdam. Journal of Law and Society 25 (4): 621-635. DOI: 10.1111/1467-6478.00106.
^[7] Even the radical reforming legislation decriminalising brothels in 1995 in NSW explicitly states in a moral register: ‘The enactment of the Disorderly Houses Amendment Act 1995 should not be taken to indicate that Parliament endorses or encourages the practice of prostitution which often involves the exploitation and sexual abuse of vulnerable women in our society.’ Disorderly Houses Amendment Act (NSW) (1995) s. 20. This is also reflected in the Purpose of the Prostitution Reform Act (NZ) (2003).
^[8] APC chapters were also formed in Victoria and South Australia. For the purposes of this article, APC refers to the NSW chapter.
^[9] Wagenaar (2017) focused on New Zealand as a case study. In 2003 the New Zealand parliament adopted the full decriminalisation of prostitution. This was the result of intense and sustained lobbying by the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective and their allies.
^[10] Roberta Perkins, Julie Bates, Victoria Principal and Erica Red are all privately held archives. The other major archive is “Deborah Joan Homburg Papers Relating to Involvement in Social Movements, 1970-1986, Particularly Prison Reform and the Women's Movement”, which contains a selection of papers regarding the establishment and operation of the Australian Collective of Prostitutes. It includes submissions to the NSW Parliamentary Select Committee on Prostitution (1983), typescript speeches and correspondence, and is held by Mitchell Library, Sydney NSW at call number MLMSS 4948, Box 10/Item [1]
^[11] These submissions were authored by a range of individuals and institutions including women’s groups, civil libertarians, welfare groups, police and other interested parties.
^[12] This approach was also adopted in Nagy V, and A Powell (2016) Legalising Sex Work: The Regulation of Risk on Australian Prostitution Law Reform. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 28 (1): [1]-16.
^[13] These groups were influenced in part by the Wolfenden Report (1957) which contemplated sexual offences. The Report recommended that state law focus on outdoor, public sex work rather than invisible and indoor forms of prostitution.
^[14] As Barbara Sullivan (2010) argues there are complex and numerous reasons why so many Australian state governments transformed their sex work laws during this period. She asserts that by attending to sex work law reform Australian states were exhibiting an established preference for using neoliberal strategies to address a multitude of social problems associated with sex work such as organised crime, police corruption and public health concerns. Yet in her analysis Sullivan also credits the “strength of sex worker advocacy groups” (Sullivan 2010: 86) as one of the main factors in the push for reform. Donovan and Harcourt concur, describing the period from 1979-1995 as “one of profound change for the Australian sex industry” (Donovan and Harcourt 1996 p ?).
^[15] It is beyond the scope of this article to explain why similar movements at roughly the same time in different jurisdictions did not result in decriminalisation. For example, the Special Committee on Prostitution and Pornography in Canada recommended that brothel and procuring laws should be loosened and that sex workers should be able to work from their own home: Department of Supply and Services (1985) Pornography and Prostitution in Canada, Volume II. Ottawa: Department of Supply and Services. Van der Meulen and Durisin argue that these reforms did not transpire due to the shift from a Liberal to a Conservative federal government just prior to the release of the committee’s final report: van der Meulen E, and E M Durisin (2008) Why Decriminalise? How Canada's Municipal and Federal Regulations Increase Sex Worker's Vulnerability. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 20 (2): 289-311. DOI: 10.3138/cjw120.2.289
^[16] The Women’s Advisory Council also made submissions to the Select Committee.
^[17] Influential texts preceding the 1980s include Freidan B (1963) The Feminine Mystique. New York City: W. W. Norton & Company; Greer G (1970) The Female Eunuch. London: HarperCollins; Hanisch C (1970) The Personal is Political. In Firestone S, and Koedt A (eds) Notes from the Second Year: Women’s Liberation. New York: Radical Feminism; Millett K (1970) Sexual Politics. United States: Doubleday and Co.
^[18] The method of standpoint feminism continues to be used, however has also been ‘ranked as one of the most contentious theories’ in terms of its status as a theory and its relevance to current thinking about knowledge: Harding S (ed) (2004) The Feminist Standpoint Theory Reader. New York and London: Routledge, 339-40.
^[19] The Women’s Advisory Council also made submissions to the Select Committee.
^[20] Professor Kerry Carrington has written about her research experience with Perkins in Carrington K (2010) Researching crime and violence: Untold stories from the field. In Bartels L, and Richards K (eds) Qualitative criminology: Stories from the field. Australia: Federation Press, 182.
^[21] It should be noted that trafficking was not raised as an issue by the Select Committee. Crofts and Prior have argued that the decriminalisation of sex work in NSW radically reduces the profits associated with the sex industry and thus is highly effective in reducing sex trafficking: Crofts P, and J Prior (2016) The Proposed Re-Introduction of Policing and Crime into the Regulation of Brothels in New South Wales. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 28(2): 209.
^[22] The recognition of different types of sex work is not sustained in the work of some theorists, including radical feminists, who focus only on the worst-case scenarios and preclude the idea of sex workers as active agents in a complex sex industry. For examples of radical feminist arguments see Farley M (2004) "Bad for the Body, Bad for the Heart": Prostitution Laws Harm Women Even If Legalized or Decriminalized. Violence Against Women, 10(1): 1087-1125. DOI: 10.1177/1077801204268607; Farley M (2006) Prostitution, Trafficking and Cultural Amnesia: What We Must Not Know to Keep the Business of Sexual Exploitation Running Smoothly. Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, 18(1). For critiques of methodological flaws, see Shaver F M, J Lewis and E Maticka-Tyndale (2011) Rising to the Challenge: Addressing the Concerns of People Working in the Sex Industry. Canadian Review of Sociology 48(1): 47-65. DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-618X.2011.01249.x; Weitzer R (2005) Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution. Violence Against Women 11 (7): 934-949. DOI: 10.1177/1077801205276986. The focus by researchers on street sex work is particularly problematic, given that it makes up only 2% of the industry in NSW: Donovan B, et al. (2012) The Sex Industry in New South Wales: A Report to the NSW Ministry of Health. Sydney: Kirby Institute, University of NSW.
^[23] This assertion by the Select Committee has proven largely to be correct. The decriminalisation of sex services premises in NSW has reduced the huge profits associated with an illegal industry and reduced opportunities for police corruption. However, restrictive policies in councils has offered a limited opportunity for council corruption: Crofts P (2012) The Proposed Licensing of Brothels in New South Wales. Local Government Law Journal, 17: 3-10.
^[24] There is also a letter of thanks from the Northern Region of the Health Department for the advice given by the APC for their submission in the Roberta Perkins private archive.
^[25] In 1986, Perkins organised another submission to the Task Group in associate with town planning, health and legal consultants and a small group of sex workers. This recommended a town planning framework – which was a compromise of sorts – and was presented directly to the Premier of NSW Neville Wran after submissions to the Committee had already closed.
^[26] The Brothel Taskforce recommended that local councils differentiate between sex services premises types in constructing planning principles: Department of Planning (2001) Report of the Brothels Taskforce. Sydney: New South Wales Government. The majority of local councils exclude ‘brothels’ from residential zones, however, home occupations (sex services) are in many councils in a different category and are permitted in residential zones, thus fulfilling this recommendation by the Select Committee. The treatment of home occupations (sex services) is very important as they make up at least 40% of the sex industry in New South Wales and also reflect that sex workers have options of where they work and their working conditions: Crofts P, and J Prior (2012) Home Occupation or Brothel? Selling Sex from Home in New South Wales. Urban Policy and Research 30(2): 127-143. DOI: 10.1080/08111146.2012.679923. Academic comment about the desire to render sex work invisible are relevant in NSW: Campbell D K (2010) The (Continuing) Regulation of Prostitution by Local Authorities. In Abel G, Healy Fitzgerald C and Taylor A (eds) Taking the Crime out of Sex Work: New Zealand Sex Workers’ Fight for Decriminalization. Bristol: The Policy Press. Valverde’s insight that local or municipal law can be as blunt and homogenizing as criminal law in its execution is apposite: Valverde M (2012) Everyday Law on the Street: City Governance in an Age of Diversity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Extending this theme, Crofts, Prior and Hubbard have analysed the extensive police powers of NSW local councils: Crofts P, J Prior, and P Hubbard (2013) Policing, Planning and Sex: Governing Bodies Spatially. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 46(1): 51-69. DOI: 10.1177/0004865812469974.
^[27] The control on ownership of brothels has not transpired. Planning law focuses on the use of land rather than the owner: Crofts P (2012) The Proposed Licensing of Brothels in New South Wales. Local Government Law Journal, 17: 3-10
^[28] Street solicitation remains partially criminalised in NSW.
^[29] Most of the Inquiry’s recommendations concerning the health of sex workers and drug users were adopted and funded immediately by the NSW Government who provided some 5 million dollars plus an additional one million for AIDS related research: Rogan P (1988) Speech delivered by Pat Rogan, former Chair of the Select Committee. Speech presented at the National Conference Sex Industry and AIDS Debate, Melbourne, October 26, 1988. Interestingly, health was not a primary focus of the Committee. The issue of sexual health was not considered until Chapter Seven of the Final Report. In contrast, contemporary accounts about the regulation of sex work tend to prioritise health. A predominant contemporary account in assessing sex work policy is to focus on the health of sex workers and their clients and this has been the target of much research in the post-decriminalisation period in NSW. Despite the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s an independent report commissioned by the NSW Ministry of Health in 2012 showed that “over 99% of all commercial vaginal sex encounters in Sydney involve the use of a condom” (Donovan et al. 2012: 24). This achievement has been credited to the early resourcing of sex work peer organisations that effectively persuaded the sex industry to adopt safe sex practices (Bates and Berg 2014). Whilst sexual health is important, Sanders has asserted “the concentration on disease and drug use not only blurs the whole picture of prostitution but distorts the emphasis on certain occupational risks while neglecting others” (Sanders 2004: 560). For a similar insight see van der Meulen E and E M Durisin (2008) Why Decriminalise? How Canada's Municipal and Federal Regulations Increase Sex Worker's Vulnerability. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 20 (2): 289-311. DOI: 10.3138/cjw120.2.289.
^[30] These arguments by the APC have proven to be prescient, with contemporary analysis demonstrating that some local councils continue to grapple with local politics and NIMBYism in the absence of clear guidance from the NSW government (Crofts 2010; Crofts, Prior and Hubbard 2013).
^[31] There is a huge literature on the advantages of decriminalisation. Bestowal of legal status imports an existing framework of legal responsibilities – including occupational health and safety, administration and payment of taxes, and the capacity to claim protection from the legal system which is more difficult when sex work is illegal (Crofts 2010). For example, NSW WorkCover (2001) Health and Safety Guidelines for Brothels. NSW: Workcover NSW. The New Zealand government followed suit in 2004 with a 100-page brochure ‘for everyone involved in the New Zealand sex industry’: Department of Labour’s Occupational Safety and Health Service (2004) Sex Industry: A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in New Zealand. Wellington: Government of New Zealand. In addition, treating sex work as legitimate helps integrate the businesses and workers into the community (Sanders 2008). Prior and Crofts have undertaken extensive research on the amenity impacts of sex work premises on nearby neighbours. See for example, Prior J, and P Crofts (2012) The Effects of Sex Premises on Neighbourhoods: Residents, Local Planning and the Geographies of a Controversial Land Use. New Zealand Geographer 68(2) 130-140. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2012.01228.x.
^[32] The National Co-ordinator and founding member of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective Catherine Healy has acknowledged that the advice and experiences of Australian sex worker organisations provided guidance for the campaign by the NZPC for decriminalisation in New Zealand: see Abel G, L Fitzgerald, and C Healy (eds.) (2010)
Taking the Crime out of Sex Work: New Zealand Sex Workers' Fight for Decriminalisation. Bristol: Policy Press, 60.