Formation and Outcome: The Political Discourses of the New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act, 2000-2003 Catherine Zangger A Thesis in The Department of Sociology and Anthropology Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Sociology) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada July 2009 © Catherine Zangger, 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-63031-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-63031-0 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Formation and Outcome: The Political Discourses of the New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act, 2000-2003 Catherine Zangger The aim of the thesis is to explore language use in the social processes of law reform. Between 2000 and 2003 New Zealand (NZ) underwent a major legal amendment and provides an ideal context for such an analysis. During that period, social policies surrounding the sex industry underwent a legal change: from criminalization to decriminalization. The specific research undertaken for my MA thesis is an analysis of NZ parliamentary debates surrounding the Prostitution Reform Bill (PRB) that led to that change. Using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1993) to examine the NZ parliamentary debates, I discuss the discursive framings which allowed the enactment of the PRB. Furthermore, I examine other government documents relating to the legal change in 2003 and newspaper articles to contextualize it. The NZ parliamentary transcripts, government documents, and news clippings, which are available free on-line, provide a rich starting point for studying the relationship between language use, law reform, and judicial policy surrounding the politics of sex work. By analysing the NZ political debates in relation to the PRB, the thesis demonstrates that Members of Parliament (MPs) opposing the law reform capitalized on the moral order rhetoric to highlight the divide between public and private spheres and to argue for added protection for the community instead of sex workers. Those in support also used this dichotomy but to promote the rights of sex workers. This created discursive divides among MPs and changed the content of the PRB. These tensions are discussed in order to use this political phenomenon to further inform the debate surrounding social movement and outcome. 2 Table of Contents Chapter I- Introduction 6 Political discourses surrounding sex work 7 Turning a bill into law 11 Contextualizing the Prostitution Reform Bill 13 Conclusion 17 Chapter II - Methodology 19 Discourse as dialectical 20 Political Rationality 21 Methodology and data 23 Conclusion 27 Chapter III - The Role of Law 28 Criminalization in the name of moral order 29 Law as amoral 33 Conclusion 36 Chapter IV- Discursive Framings Opposing the PRB 38 Moral Paradigms 38 Damaging to the community 41 Damaging to the family unit 43 Damaging to the young and the vulnerable 44 Damaging to women and sex workers 47 Conclusion 52 Chapter V- Discursive Framings Supporting the PRB 54 3 What is decriminalization? 55 Sex workers are the most vulnerable 57 No increase in sex work 58 Safe-sex industry 60 Safety of sex workers. 62 Human and worker rights for sex workers 64 A service to all sex workers 68 Conclusion 71 Chapter VI- Discussion 73 Legalization or decriminalization 73 Decriminalization as 'bad' as legalization 79 Territorial authority may make by-laws 82 Section ] 2 of the PRA: bylaws controlling signage advertising commercial sex i 82 Section 14 of the PRA: bylaws regulating location of brothels 83 Conclusion 84 Chapter IIV- Post-2003: Health and Safety of Sex Workers 87 Contributions 90 Bibliography 92 Appendix 1 - New Zealand Legislative Process 98 Appendix 2 - Members of Parliament Spoken at the Readings 99 Appendix 3 - Seat Change of Political Parties at 2002 NZ Federal Election 101 Appendix 4 - The Prostitution Reform Bill as Introduced 102 4 Appendix 5 - The Prostitution Reform Act 2003 109 5 Formation and Outcome: Political Discourses surrounding the New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act, 2000-2003 Chapter I- Introduction Kantola and Squires (2004) and Outshoorn (2001) argue that political discourses can close or open doors for new policy measures. Although not all social movements aim for political change, the movements that do depend on the persuasion of political actors for success can rely on discourse as a strategy (McCammon et al. 2007). New Zealand (NZ) gives us an ideal case study to analyse the role of ideas in policy formation. In 2003, NZ became the first nation-state to decriminalize sex work, and has been the aim of the sex workers' rights movement since its birth in 1973 (West 2000). Thus, the political outcome in NZ signifies a victory for the movement. According to the sex workers' rights movement, decriminalization is the ideal legal framework for the safety of sex workers. Using NZ Parliamentary Hansard and theoretical concepts from Nikolas Rose (1999), Norman Fairclough (1993), and Dorothy Smith (1998), the thesis demonstrates a positive relationship between discursive framings and policy change. By analysing the NZ political debates between 2000 and 2003 in relation to the Prostitution Reform Bill (PRB), the thesis demonstrates that Members of Parliament (MPs) opposing the law reform capitalized on the moral order rhetoric to highlight the divide between public and private spheres in order to argue for added protection for the community instead of sex workers. They also created discursive divides among MPs by accusing the PRB of changing its legal aim from decriminalization to a legalization model. To begin, this chapter describes the political context of the policy change. Afterwards, Chapter II describes the methodology, data, and theoretical concepts used to identify the sites of contestation. Chapter III sets up the debate by describing how 6 competing MPs (Opposing and Supporting MPs of the PRB) viewed 'the role of law' regarding public and private spaces. This chapter reduces the conflict to the public and private paradigm. With an understanding on how competing MPs view 'the role of law', Chapters IV, and V outline the competing discursive framings present among political actors regarding the legal frameworks suggested. More specifically, Chapter IV examines how the PRB is discussed by Opposing MPs and Chapter V.discusses how the PRB was described by Supporting MPs. To finalize, the relationship between discursive framings and policy change is discussed in Chapter VI. The final chapter is based on a discussion of the observed competing discursive framings identified in the previous chapters and the changes made to the PRB. Political discourses surrounding sex work With the rise of the sex workers' rights movement, sex work has become a subject of many political debates, however, there has been little research conducted on the political discourse surrounding sex work. Previous work includes a feminist analysis of the dominant political discourses surrounding sex work in the UK by Kantola and Squires (2004). They demonstrated that "The dominance of the public nuisance discourse led to very specific policy responses, which focus on strategies of driving prostitution away or containing it within a strictly regulated area" (85). The findings show that certain issues were not brought forth within the UK political arena due to the lack of the sex work discourse or of pro-rights feminism. Furthermore, they assert that "the rights of women as prostitutes fail to be prioritized within UK policy debates as a result of the marginality of the sex work discourse" (Kantola and Squires 2004: 77). This was also noted by Outshoorn (2001) within the Netherland political context. 7 Furthermore, Outshoorn (2004) and others (Jeffrey 2004; Sullivan 2004; Kantola and Squires 2004a) have completed policy debate studies in Australia, Austria, Canada, Sweden, Britain, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain. The research locations are quite vast, however, the number of articles in each context is limited to a few, and no study has been done in NZ. A lack of research in relation to political debates surrounding sex work leads to an incomplete picture of the politics surrounding sex work. Another crucial aspect to consider when examining discourse and policy change is the history of the text examined. From its introduction to its enactment, the PRB underwent significant changes and these have been included in the analysis.