City to change sex worker laws

Private sex workers may soon be allowed to operate throughout Sydney’s central business district, with the City of Sydney considering removing a ban on the practice.

Council is currently investigating how to integrate the former South Sydney private sex work policy with the former City of Sydney’s policy. The conflicting policies have stayed in place since the councils merged in February.

Private sex work is currently permitted in the areas of South Sydney but prohibited within the old City of Sydney boundaries.

Kathy Cusack, City of Sydney’s manager of planning policy, told Sydney Star Observer she would recommend lifting the ban on home sex work, saying there’s no reason for it.

Cusack said the entire council area was likely to adopt South Sydney’s policy of allowing sex workers to operate from their home business without council approval as long as no more than one person operated from a residence at any one time.

Some in the sex industry have complained the one-person rule could endanger the lives of workers who could not have anyone else at home to protect them from dangerous clients. However, Cusack said there could be more than one person on the premises so long as they were not both seeing clients at the same time. She was unsure whether the definition of a private sex business would be changed to allow more than one worker per residence.

City of Sydney’s sex industry liaison officer, Andrew Miles, said private sex workers were being asked to fill out questionnaires to assist the review process.

He said many private sex workers were unaware of the council’s rules regulating the industry.

Council’s policy review is expected to be finished by the end of the year. Cusack said this is the first of many conflicting council policies which need to be reviewed following the amalgamation.