Industry advocate urges scrapping NT’s outdated lifelong registration laws

LEAH Potter hasn’t worked in the sex industry since 2002. But almost two decades later, she is still on the Territory sex worker register and unless changes are made, will be for the rest of her life

Leah Potter is still on the Territory sex worker register despite having not worked in the sex industry since 2002. She has called for reform to bring the industry into the open. Picture: Katrina Bridgeford

LEAH Potter hasn’t worked in the sex industry since 2002.

But almost two decades later, she is still on the Territory sex worker register and unless changes are made, will be for the rest of her life.

“Now I’m an old grandmother with a soup kitchen, but I’m on a sex register for life,” she said.

“It’s not fair, and it’s not necessary. Who is that keeping safe?”

The stigma of lifelong registration meant some sex workers chose to work outside the law, she said.

If they were then assaulted by a client, those workers were reluctant to report it to police, she said.

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“If a client knows that you’re doing something illegal then they’re in the position of power,” she said.

Ms Potter employed 13 sex workers at Princess Escorts, the Darwin agency she owned in the ’90s.

The laws, which haven’t been updated since, put those employees at risk, she said.

Ms Potter said she regularly flouted the rules by keeping a room for her employees to work from safely.

“I had to completely disregard my licensing commission conditions every day to keep them safe,” Ms Potter said.

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“If they come in and close those massage places down, those girls are still going to work, they will just work from unsafe places.

“And if you kicked all the hookers out of this town, all that money which goes back into the economy would go too.”

She called for commonsense reform to bring the industry into the open.

“This isn’t civil disobedience,” she said.

“We’re not running around in anarchy wanting to get our vaginas out. We just want to work safely and have proper working conditions.