Perth Voice Interactive

AN online register of men convicted of hiring street prostitutes may be scrapped just three years after its introduction.

For months the Vincent city council register — introduced during the reign of former mayor Alannah MacTiernan — has been empty: “There are no recorded convictions at this present time,”it reads.

The controversial register was introduced to drive the message home to men looking for some paid whoopee that if they kerb-crawled Stirling and Smith Streets they risked having their details posted on the internet.

Rowdiness, rudeness, gardens used as toilets and a pool co-opted as a douche-station for sex workers were amongst residents’ complaints. Young women living and working in the area were also harassed.

At this year’s Vincent AGM, former councillor Dudley Maier suggested the council take a look at whether the register was needed any more.

He’d opposed its introduction because it could identify the wrong person (especially with common names), and he told the Voice it wouldn’t have the intended deterrent factor because people didn’t have enough warning beforehand of the likely consequence.

The list is actually a bugger to find, buried in the council website’s sub menus: names are stored as an image so it’s unGoogle-able.

Mayor John Carey supported the list at the time but agrees a rethink is needed.

“I think it has become redundant now,” he says. “I think that the issue has certainly quietened down. If it is redundant now I’m happy for it to be removed… it’s served its purpose.”

by DAVID BELL