Wednesday, February 15, 2012



Delayed again

This week, the Local Government and Environment Committee produced an interim report [PDF] on the Manukau City Council (Regulation of Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill.. Originally limited to South Auckland, the new Auckland Council wants to extend it over the whole of Auckland - allowing them to effectively recriminalise prostitution and place sex-workers outside the protection of the law in an area containing one-third of our total population. This is a pretty big change to a bill people weren't that keen on in the first place, so its been opened up for public submissions again. Unfortunately, the Parliamentary website doesn't have any details on when you can submit, but it means that the committee's final report on the bill has now been pushed back until the end of July.

So, we won't be seeing a vote on this any time soon. Which in turn means even more time before Auckland's wowsers can waste more ratepayer's money on another futile attempt at turning back the clock.

Update: Information on submitting on the bill and Auckland Council's SOP is here.