Time to address exploitation towards adult entertainers? MPs think so

Tuesday, 18 February 2025

Members of Fired Up Stilettos collective arrive at Parliament two years ago to tell MPs about abuse of workers in the adult entertainment industry. Parliament’s process of considering, and acting on petitions from members of the public, continues to grind slowly on.

Adult entertainers have been failed by “inadequate” laws and regulators with other priorities, leaving them unprotected from those causing them harm, MPs on the Education and Workforce select committee have concluded.

Dancers from the Fired Up Stilettos group petitioned Parliament in 2023 seeking law changes to help them end what they said was widespread exploitation by strip club owners.

“We have experienced a culture of bullying, income theft, violations of contract law, and sometimes outright labour trafficking. We want nationwide intervention to stop these exploitative practices,” Fired Up Stilettos told MPs.

They outlined abuses from arbitrary “fines”, clubs taking an excessive cut of their earnings, blackballing dancers who complain about abuses from multiple clubs, and failing to provide safe workplaces.

At a select committee hearing in July last year, Fired Up Stilettos spokespeople told MPs there was a power imbalance with club owners, on whom they were dependent for their incomes.

Now, the select committee has published a report accepting the abuses dancers complain about are happening, and that the excuses made by the Commerce Commission and Worksafe for not taking action failed to take into account how vulnerable the dancers, mostly young women, are to being exploited.

Australian lesson from Fired Up Stilettos for New Zealand MPs on how to protect adult entertainment workers.

The report recommended the Government address adult entertainers’ concerns.

The Government must now respond to the select committee report within 60 working days.

Bianca Beebe, a public health researcher and organiser with Fired Up Stilettos, said the group was meeting with Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden in March.

“We are pleased with the select committee’s call for action,” Beebe said. “They have clearly said that the powers that be need to do something about this.”

Fired Up Stilettos’ petition called for new laws to allow adult entertainment workers to bargain collectively while still maintaining independent contractor status.

It also asked for laws to outlaw all fines and bonds between employers and contractors, and establish a nationwide mandatory maximum of 20% that an employer can take from a contractor’s profits.

Beebe said Fired Up Stilettos had met with MPs from major political parties, and was in the process of working with some on a private members’ bill.

Laura Phillips and Vixen Temple from Fired Up Stilettos addressing MPs last year on why new laws are needed to protect adult entertainers. The two women are shown reacting to a question from National MP Grant McCallum, who had sounded a supportive note on their push for change.

However, she said, the preference would be for a Government bill.

The select committee found that industry-specific laws were a tool New Zealand had used repeatedly, citing examples covering sharemilkers, screen industry workers, and construction contractors.

It said New Zealand had been a leader in sex worker rights with the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, but it had fallen behind when it came to rights and protections for adult entertainers.

Beebe said: “We do not want this to simply be tweaks to current legislation. We want new legislation that is applied to the adult entertainment industry.”

Structural change was needed for the industry she said, and that meant adult entertainers having the right to engage in collective bargaining.

Labour’s Camilla Belich says, ‘We were confronted with a lengthy amount of evidence showing very difficult and unfair conditions of work faced by women in the adult entertainment industry.“

MPs on the select committee heard evidence from the Commerce Commission and Worksafe, which had received complaints from adult entertainers, but both said they prioritised investigating other industries where they felt they could have more impact.

But the select committee report indicated MPs were unimpressed by how those two regulators, both of which have come in for criticism in recent months, decide on their priorities.

“We are unsure whether agencies’ prioritisation frameworks sufficiently account for workers’ vulnerability,” the report said. ”We are concerned that a lack of action to address the harm described by the petitioner may further enable those causing the harm.“

The report noted that Worksafe had had multiple safety complaints, including rape, sexual assault, bullying and harassment, assault, the presence of firearms, and other unsafe working conditions such as uneven floors, which were hard for dancers to safely negotiate in high heels.

Green Party MPs Chloe Swarbrick, and Ricardo Menendez-March.

Labour’s Camilla Belich is opposition spokesperson for workplace relations and safety, and one of the MPs on the select committee.

She said: “We were confronted with a lengthy amount of evidence showing very difficult and unfair conditions of work faced by women in the adult entertainment industry.”

Green MP Ricardo Menéndez-March was working with Fired Up Stilettos on the draft of a private members’ bill.

Menéndez-March, who is a member of the Education and Workforce select committee said: “It is significant that this committee made up of a majority of Government members has actually asked the Government to address Fired Up Stiletto’s concerns.”