With a vote of 9-to-5, Councillors voted to ban all brothels and sex related services as an acceptable land use, making Parramatta the first community in the State of New South Wales to defy the NSW State Government’s planning requirements, after 15 years of trying to make the law work.

Under the NSW Government’s new planning regulations template imposed on all NSW local Councils, all NSW local councils are required to include brothels and sex related services in their local planning regulations.

Since the decriminalisation of prostitution in 1995, which was introduced to avert corruption, NSW has instead seen a proliferation of brothels and sex services in commercial and residential areas.

I am currently the only elected Parramatta Councillor remaining with a perfect record of voting against all brothel applications. Elected 11 years ago in September 1999, I campaigned publicly campaigned against brothels both legal and illegal. In 2001, I was successful in getting Parramatta to be the first Council to support the use of utilities orders against brothels via the Support for the Community Protection (Illegal Brothels) Bill. It was a proposal by the NSW Liberal/National State MPs but was rejected by the then Carr Labor Government. In 2007, the utilities order became law by the Iemma Labor Government, with Parramatta also being the first in NSW to use the utilities order to deny the supply of electricity and water to brothels deemed to be operating illegally.

Over the last 15 years, we have also had experiences where a highly respected property owner was faced with seeking NSW Supreme Court orders in order to legally remove an illegal brothel from their own properties, without assistance from the police or Council, and a Council recommendation for approval for an expansion of a brothel with the inclusion of a panic room. Such an expanded brothel with a panic room only confirms that female sex-workers are already in harm’s way. It is also implausible to expect sex-workers to first extract themselves from being assaulted by the clients in their rooms and then escape to their panic room.

The prohibition of brothels and sex related services in the Parramatta local government area is a direct response of Parramatta’s inability to protect its community interests from the imposition of such services by the NSW State Government. For the last 5 years, we have lost 88.89% of the time in the Land and Environment Court about proposals by brothel operators and owners. It is also the result of the loss of faith by the Council to protect sex-workers from violence.

This ban now proceeds to the NSW Department of Planning for their concurrence. Invitations to Parramatta’s local parliamentarians will be sent seeking their support for this prohibition. The Parramatta State MP and Deputy Speaker is the Hon Tanya Gadiel MP (Labor), the Parramatta Federal MP is Julie Owens MP (Labor), and Parramatta’s local NSW Senator is Marise Payne.