Street prostitution debate before Parliament

The street prostitution debate has begun again. Photo / Thinkstock

Debate on street prostitution is about revive at Parliament.

A bill that will allow Auckland Council to ban street prostitution in specific places is to be considered by the local government select committee.

Other city councils including Christchurch are expected to show interest and may seek to have the same powers applied generally.

An earlier 2005 bill, relating to Manukau City Council, was voted down in 2006 after it emerged from strongly divided select committee hearings.

Former Manurewa MP George Hawkins sponsored the local bill at the request of Manukau to address street prostitution near residential areas.

After its defeat, he introduced another one in 2010 just before the Auckland Super City was formed.

Auckland Council has told the local government select committee it wants to take over the bill, and its jurisdiction is greater Auckland.

National MPs supported Mr Hawkins' original bill.

The local government and environment committee will consider the bill and submissions close on February 29.

Chairwoman Nicky Wagner, who is MP for Christchurch Central, said there had been a lot of interest from other cities "and other people wanting to piggy-back on it".

"What we need to do is think about how we are going to manage the whole thing and we need to decide what the scope of the bill will be."

She said there had been a lot of interest already, particularly from Christchurch where street prostitution in the inner city had moved out to the residential areas.

The committee would have to decide whether it was possible to extend the bill and then whether it wanted to.

Mr Hawkins said he would have preferred to have had a bill amending the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 to outlaw street prostitution nationally.

The select committee report on the first bill that was voted down said that if the bill were passed, "citizens would be subject to conflicting criminal laws, depending on their current geographical locale". It also thought it would simply move the problem.

The committee believed passage of the bill would negate the intentions of the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, which legalised and regulated the sex trade.