NSW Sex Workers Rights

To:  NSW Premier Mr Iemma

Open Letter To The Premier of NSW, Mr Morris Iemma

The Big Bosses of the sex industry have misled you into helping them shut down their competition. The Adult Business Association (ABA) has led a scare campaign against the smaller, independent brothels and home based independent workers, who have not been able to have Development Applications approved by Local Councils. This is mostly due to;

1) Many Local Councils refusing ALL Development Applications for sex industry businesses
and
2) Lack of money to over-ride local council decisions through the Land and Environment Court

This has led to only the "big business" brothels who can afford the court costs to acquire approved DA's.

The recent changes made by your government with the Brothels Amendment Act has only served to help the "big businesses" of the sex industry shut down their competition. In recent media, the ABA has declared war on those brothels who could not afford to take their local councils to court to enforce the approval of DA's, where the "moral hysteria" has prevented any sex industry businesses in their area being approved.

The approval of a DA only shows that the Brothel Owner has enough money, not that they are a good employer and that they treat their staff, the sex workers, properly. There is no evidence that the health and safety of workers and clients are any better in DA approved premises those without.

This campaign by moralistic councils intent of eliminating the sex trade totally from their areas, and the big bosses of the sex trade helping to remove their competition, only serves to drive a large part of the industry underground, making the working conditions more dangerous for the sex workers, the men and women who work in the industry and also opening up for renewed police &/or council corruption.

In addition to this, the current definition of Brothel also includes some small home based business's (where there are 2 or more home based sex workers) which are also a target of these new laws, potentially unfairly evicting people from their homes.

We demand that the NSW Government changes the definition of Brothel to exclude all home based work and compel the Local Councils to fully implement the Sex Services Premises Planning Guidelines & to treat the sex services industry in a similar manner to other commercial enterprises.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The NSW Sex Workers Rights Petition to NSW Premier Mr Iemma was created by and written by Kane Matthews (kanematthews1@gmail.com).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.