Two bills to decriminalise prostitution in South Australia have failed, with the issue of legalizing the sex trade now off the table for “quite some time”, according to FamilyVoice Australia national research officer Ros Phillips.

One bill, introduced by backbencher Stephanie Key to the SA House of Assembly on 15 November, was narrowly defeated by a vote. The other Sex Work Reform Bill, championed by the Minister for the Status of Women, the Hon Gail Gago, has been withdrawn from the Legislative Council.

Phillips says the withdrawal of Gago’s Bill suggests it didn’t have the numbers to make it through. “Rather than face the embarrassment of defeat, she [Gago] has withdrawn the Bill.

FamilyVoice Australia has welcomed the announcement, claiming victory in ending “an attempt to bring in ‘open slather’ prostitution and pimping” to South Australia.

Phillips points to similar enacted laws in New South Wales and New Zealand to decriminalise prostitution, saying they have resulted in a “boom in legal and illegal brothels as well as street prostitution. They are out of control.”

She says brothel reform in NSW, announced by Premier Barry O’Farrell in September, including introducing strict licensing requirements, add to mounting evidence that decriminalising prostitution doesn’t work.

According to Phillips, Scandanavian countries are the ones to watch when it comes to getting the laws right in this area.

“They don’t make being a prostitute illegal in countries like Sweden or Norway, but it’s illegal to exploit the prostitution of others – including pimping, procuring, brothel keeping and buying sex. And it provides an effective exit program to help women leave the trade,” says Phillips.

Stephanie Key told The Australian last week that it was a myth that women were forced to be prostitutes. “There is no evidence in South Australia to support that fact that there will be more trafficked women coming to South Australia and being forced to be sex workers.”

Ari Reid from the Sex Industry Network told the ABC in 2010 that sex workers “don’t have any rights or protections and under a decriminalised model, sex workers would have access to all of the rights and protections that every other worker does in South Australia.

This is the sixth attempt to decriminalise sex work in South Australia in 32 years.