Prostitution in Australia

rdf:langString Prostitution in Australia

rdf:langString Prostitution or sex work in Australia is governed by state and territory laws, which vary considerably. Federal legislation also affects some aspects of sex work throughout Australia, and of Australian citizens abroad. Legal responses of the nine jurisdictions of Australia to prostitution have differed. Some of the differences have been due to political factors. Eastern Australian states and territories liberalised their laws in the late 20th century; but liberalisation has been restricted by upper houses of Parliament of several states, with legislation either defeated or extensively amended. New South Wales was the first state or territory to adopt a different model, decriminalising prostitution in 1979. This became a model for New Zealand and a failed attempt in Western Australia in 2008. Victoria and Queensland adopted different models, based on legalisation—Victoria in 1986 and Queensland in 1992. In the remaining states of Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia, despite intense debate and many proposed legislative reforms there has been no change in the laws. The Australian Capital Territory adopted partial decriminalisation in 1992, and the Northern Territory allowed partial decriminalisation in 1992 and full decriminalisation in 2019. In all jurisdictions the issue remains divisive, and in the three eastern states with regulated prostitution there has been intermittent review. Much of the information in this article concerns cisgender heterosexual, not homosexual or transgender, prostitution. In Australia, legislation and regulation has progressively replaced the terms "prostitute" and "prostitution" with "sex worker" and "sex work". The United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), which issues regular statistics on sex work, estimated there were around 20,500 sex workers in Australia in 2016. Scarlet Alliance, a national peer sex worker NGO, provides advocacy for sex workers in Australia.