Freedom for sex workers in Queensland welcomed

Hotels will not be allowed to turn away sex workers and services could be advertised on television and radio under proposed reforms to decriminalise the industry in Queensland.

Hotels will not be allowed to turn away sex workers and services could be advertised on television and radio under proposed reforms to decriminalise the industry in Queensland.

Since mid-2021 the Queensland Law Reform Commission has been investigating how to ­decriminalise sex work and its ­report, released on Monday, made 47 recommendations to the Palaszczuk government.

In Queensland, sex can be sold only in one of the state’s 20 ­licensed brothels or by sole operators who are forbidden from working in pairs.

Escort agencies, unlicensed brothels, massage parlours, street workers and two or more sex workers operating from a single premises are considered illegal.

Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman said the government “broadly supported” the recommendations and was committed to decriminalisation in line with other jurisdictions­ ­including NSW, Victoria, the Northern Territory and New Zealand.

“The Law Reform Commission found that our current laws stigmatise sex workers, increase their vulnerability to violence and (deny) their human rights,” Ms Fentiman said. “One of the key recommendations the law ­reform commission has made is that sex workers should be able to work safely in pairs. That is ­obviously a safety strategy that sex workers use which is currently criminalised in Queensland.”

She said the industry still would be regulated by council planning laws, advertising codes, public amenity and nuisance laws.

“We will now consider how to best implement laws and regulations that will afford sex workers the same rights and legal protections as any other business or industry,” Ms Fentiman said.

The commission report found sex work businesses “should be neither unfairly disadvantaged nor unfairly privileged”.

“Special laws that single out sex work are not needed since laws of general application are fit for purpose,” it found.

Janelle Fawkes, a sex worker and the DecrimQLD campaign leader, welcomed proposed reforms to abolish Queensland’s licensing framework.

“We have extreme over-regulation,” she said.

“Because there’s so many hoops to jump through, it is so difficult to participate in the licensed sector that there are only 20 ­licensed brothels and the rest of the industry is locked out.”

Lulu, who has been a sex worker for 13 years working legally and illegally, said decriminalisation would be “absolutely life changing” for sex workers but would have “pretty much no impact at all on the rest of the Queensland community”.

“Outcomes from reviews after decriminalisation in other jurisdictions have shown that there’s been absolutely no increase in the number of sex workers in the industry, it is literally just about providing access to industrial rights and workplace health and safety for people who are already sex workers,” she said.