The Prostitution in the ACT: Interim Report estimated that approximately 4,000 clients engaged the services of sex workers each week in Canberra. Secondly, most efforts to eradicate prostitution, both in Australia and overseas, had been unsuccessful. There was also heightening concern over the spread of infectious diseases and the coercion of minors and immigrants into the trade.
The main stakeholders in the creation and implementation of the occupation health and safety policy included community groups, the local government, police and sex workers. All of these parties had an active interest; however, it was the government who were the primary driving force behind the policy. In 1991 the Australian Capital Territory Legislative assembly established a select committee on Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Illegal Drugs and Prostitution. The options the Select Committee considered for law reform were decriminalisation and legalisation. Decriminalisation alone would mean that prostitution would be treated like any other business: criminal sanctions would be removed and police would not regulate their activities. It would not, however, allow for our local government to regulate the location of brothels, or street prostitution.
Legalisation was another choice: it involved formal recognition of prostitution in legislation and its regulation by government. This had been tried in Victoria since 1986 and was described as a "failed experiment" . The provisions which only allowed sex workers to work in licensed brothels in Victoria led to worse working conditions for prostitutes, who frequently earned less money and worked longer hours than in the illegal industry. Illegal brothels were being set-up again, and the incidence of street prostitution was increasing as sex workers left licensed brothels. There is, however, a middle ground between these two options: decriminalisation with controls.
This means that, although the criminal penalties are removed from prostitution, there are still some controls over the location of brothels and street prostitution.