by Selwyn Manning

Auckland’s red light district pimps and prostitutes have avoided a council clampdown on the sex industry.

An Auckland City Council committee reviewed the sex industry to see how and if regulations could be used to control the red light districts.

A background report has been issued to the Advocacy Committee, after it considered changes to the Massage Parlous Act following complaints about sex billboards and unlicensed premises.

Former Labour MP and committee chair, Richard Northey, says the laws governing the sex industry are complex and contradictory.

He says there's a fear that further regulation will drive the oldest profession deeper underground. And that, it is feared, will aid a rise in crime and place sex workers in a state of danger.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>