Exhausting! Between November 2018 and November 2019, we ran around Melbourne and regional Victoria meeting and lobbying 49 MPs and their electorate staff. Upper and Lower House, Labor, Liberal, Nationals, Greens, crossbenchers, Ministers, backbenchers … We never stopped talking sex work. Our key message was a call to review Victoria’s outdated sex work laws.
Sex workers from a range of backgrounds from SWLRV had vital conversations, both in parliament and in electorate offices in all corners of greater Melbourne; from Frankston to Werribee to Diamond Creek. What did we do on the long train journeys? Call and email yet more MPs to secure more meetings. We developed a real appreciation for Labor’s new public transport infrastructure in the form of brand new train stations.
We met supporters, critics, and a large group of MPs who just didn’t know what to think. Lobbying on the cheap, we caught public transport, trains, buses, lots of trams and V-Line. And we battled rain, awful winds, cold weather.
And after all of this, still no movement from the government on delivering a sex work review. Beginning to lose hope.