Street prostution cannot be eradicated. (This did have footnotes, but the numbers didn't show up)

Contention: For people to understand that street prostitution is a problem that will never go away and that we must make sacrifices to make life for prostitutes safer.

Street prostoution is impossible to eradicate. The fact is that no matter how many laws and restrictions are placed on streetwalkers and their "gutter-crawling" clients, street prostitution will continue. Sally Morrell's argument that "all it would take is the will and the money to hire enough police to get the job done" is a belief shared by many Australians but is ignorant. Perhaps for a while after we spend thousands hiring hundreds of police to "get the job done" streetwalkers in St. Kilda will dissipate, only to appear in another neighborhood a few months later. By first controlling the environment streetwalkers we can then focus on removing the problem, it's the only way.

Harm minimization is today a loosely used term. Premier Bracks has appeared to use it a lot recently and his opponents have condemned his use of the phrase.

Herald Sun

Prostitute talking to a potential customer in West...

World map (based on File:BlankMap-World-USA-Can-UK...

Bracks' opponents say it is a cover-up for giving up. However his recent use of the phrase "harm minimization" regarding streetwalkers has struck the right note with me. These streetwalkers are going to continue doing what they do no matter how strictly the law is enforced. Should we abandon them to a life of drugs, disease and sex? Should we leave them to O.D, get abused and die? Or should we step in and provide these people with a safe environment from which they may one day escape. Only a truly uncompassionate human could argue that we should leave them to their own accord until the police and social workers must clean them up. As Les Twentyman says "I am tired of going to their funerals" . By minimizing...