The Queenstown Lakes District Council decided at a meeting yesterday on proposed permitted areas where brothels could operate in the Queenstown and Wānaka town centres. The boundaries will go out for public submissions from today.
Aotearoa New Zealand Sex Workers’ Collective spokeswoman Dame Catherine Healy said the boundaries should be larger.
Contacted after the council decision was passed at a Wānaka meeting yesterday afternoon, Dame Catherine said it was good the council was reconsidering a "repressive bylaw that has caused harm".
However, the recommended proposal yesterday did not go far enough in easing restrictions on sex workers.
Brothels should not be limited to the commercial areas of Queenstown and Wānaka, because that made business unaffordable for operators, she said.
Queenstown’s tight restrictions meant sex workers were reluctant to report situations to police for fear of being charged with breaching a bylaw, she said.
The decision to renew the Brothel Control Bylaw 2017 had one opposer: Wānaka councillor Lyal Cocks, who said he would prefer brothels to be managed under the district plan.
"Why should they be treated like this? They are small businesses, being treated differently to other small businesses who can also create disturbances or nuisances. Why treat this one differently with a bylaw?"
Council policy staff presented three options to the councillors, recommending option one, that would see brothel zones extended to mirror the existing commercial zones in Queenstown and Wānaka.
Option two, which the councillors preferred, would moderately expand the permitted zone within the commercial town centres — "an intermediate option" between the current bylaw and option one.
Option three would retain the current restricted area to a small portion of both town centres.
The policy managers said the council was required to put a preferred option out for consultation but had room to move between options and make amendments before proposing the final bylaw.
Councillors Gavin Bartlett, Matt Bartlett and Barry Bruce asked questions about the potential for brothels to be close to "sensitive areas".
They were told sensitive areas had not been defined in law nor were they listed in the proposed bylaw, although other councils kept registers (such as schools, cemeteries and churches).
People could give feedback about sensitive areas. They could also give feedback about areas where they felt a bylaw was not needed, the policy managers said.
Dame Catherine said afterwards it was disappointing the reference to "meeting demand" was left in the proposed bylaw.
"The word ‘demand’ does my head in. It implies it [sex work] is demand driven. Sex workers have agency. It implies something else, something monstrous," she said.
The word "consumer" was also not a good word and more neutral language was needed, she said.
"My disquiet comes from the fact that they didn’t come from the angle of protecting the rights of sex workers," she said.
She was looking forward to attending the council hearing.
"Queenstown has been one of the last bastions around the country where it has been so uptight. There is nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of."
