- - - -

Stopping slavery in the streets we know

Greens Deputy Lord Mayor Candidate Cr Kathleen Maltzahn writes:

Over five years ago, I stumbled across slavery in Brunswick St Fitzroy. It was shocking, but not surprising. It wasn’t the first time I’d found out about slavery in Melbourne’s inner city. It wouldn’t be the last.

What was shocking was how long it took for the federal government to respond. It took from the raid of the brothel in mid-2003 to a High Court decision that was handed down on August 28 this year for this case to be resolved.

In between, the five victims endured a committal hearing, two trials, an appeal to the Court of Appeals and the High Court case. Finally though, they have been told that yes, what they experienced was slavery, a crime against humanity.

So what does that have to do with local government?

Local government is often derisively described in terms of roads, rubbish and rates. Of course, it does those things, and during this climate change emergency, it can be argued that how well we deal with those three things will be determine how well we survive into this century. Transport is one of the biggest uses of energy, the culture of consumption fuels climate change, and where we find the money to deal with these challenges is an important question.

But local government is more than the three Rs. The Victorian Local Government Act 1989 tells us that:

The primary objective of a Council is to endeavour to achieve the best outcomes for the local community having regard to the long term and cumulative effects of decisions.

To do this, the Act says, councils ‘must have regard’ ‘to promote the social, economic and environmental viability and sustainability of the municipal district.’

Which means that social justice and human rights are very proper concerns of local government. For a party like The Greens, that has social justice as one of its four pillars, being involved in local government makes a lot of sense.

And for someone like me, who has fought against sexual slavery for many years, local government opens up whole new ways of doing something.

This week, at Yarra Council, we will vote on a motion I initiated to compel every brothel in Yarra to display a sign saying sexual slavery is a serious crime, explaining what this covers, and saying where women can get help.

Greens Councillor Fraser Brindley will initiate a similar motion at Melbourne.

This takes the landmark international High Court decision and translates it to the grassroots.

It will means trafficked women won’t have to hope that help will come to them - without leaving the brothel, they will know both that what is happening to them is a serious crime in Australia and that help is available.

I know from trafficked women I have worked with that this can make a huge difference - too many women just don’t know how to escape once they’ve been trafficked.

I believe state government should bring in a similar regulation to cover every brothel in the state, but I know this won’t happen overnight. At a local government level, in contrast, with the right people on council, change can happen quickly.

Getting the right people on council to make smart decisions about roads, rubbish and rates is crucial. But Greens councillors don’t stop there - we can take the great social issues of our time, and make a difference at the local level. With a Greens Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor, and Greens councillors on the City of Melbourne, we could put social justice at the heart of every Melbourne decision.

Links

  1. Fitzroyalty

    1

    In his post of 16 September Steve Jolly says that this vote has already occured, and that the motion was passed. Someone’s timing is out! Either way, congratulations to both of your for this excellent policy initiative.

    Sep 24th, 2008

  2. Alister

    2

    Kathleen’s post was written a little over a week prior to its publication, which explains the timing question.

    Sep 24th, 2008

  3. Nhi

    3

    This article on slavery was, for me, a very powerful thing to put on your homepage and differentiates you from almost every other group that’s been filling my letter box pre-election.

    On another topic: I was very disappointed to find that, of the ten or eleven groups that sent me mail boasting about their commitment to the environment, only two bothered to make it clear that they had printed on recycled paper and only one was 100% recycled. Neither of these groups was the Greens.

    Nov 17th, 2008

  4. Alister Air

    4

    Dear Nhi,

    Thanks for the comment. Kathleen has been working on this issue for some time, and is recognised as an expert in the field. She has previously been invited by the Australian Federal Police to present at a conference for Commonwealth investigators, covering a number of departments, including the AFP, the Australian Taxation Office and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

    I’m sorry that we didn’t make it clear that our material has been printed on recycled paper. In the authorisation text of our leaflets, it notes that the paper is recycled, but the text is quite small and it’s easy to overlook.

    Regards,

    Alister

    Nov 17th, 2008

  5. Nhi

    5

    Alister wrote:
    >it notes that the paper is recycled,
    > but the text is quite small and it’s easy to overlook.

    That reassures me, thanks!
    And thanks for getting back to me.

    Nov 17th, 2008

Reply to “Stopping slavery in the streets we know”