Family First exists to restore Australia by restoring the primacy of the family in public policy. This will be achieved through a grass roots political party which raises courageous voices in our nation’s parliaments. More details are available on our website: https://www.familyfirstparty.org.au/
KEY FACTS:
· A Herald Sun investigation (12 July 2026) reported industry and police estimates of up to 5000 brothels operating across Victoria, many in suburban shopping strips, since sex work was decriminalised in 2022.
· Police estimate the number of brothels is now at least double the roughly 1500 illicit tobacco shops operating in Victoria.
· No licence or planning permit is required to open a brothel anywhere in Victoria — including next to a school, childcare centre or family home — following the repeal of the Sex Work Act 1994 in December 2023.
· Victoria Police's specialist sex industry co-ordination unit (SICU) was closed in December 2023, ending dedicated police powers of entry, with or without a warrant, to sex work premises.
· The Kirby Institute (UNSW) has recorded a doubling in syphilis and gonorrhoea cases over the past decade.
· Former sex industry investigators have raised concerns that some brothels are linked to organised crime and human trafficking, including cases of women brought to Australia on student visas and having their passports withheld until debts are paid off.
· Family First has consistently called for governments across Australia to adopt the Nordic model, which decriminalises those selling sex while criminalising the buying of sex and profiting from it as a pimp or brothel-keeper. The model is in place in Sweden, Norway and Iceland and is credited with reducing demand for prostitution and undermining sex trafficking.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
13 July 2026
BROTHELS IN YOUR BACKYARD: LABOR'S SEX INDUSTRY FREE-FOR-ALL
Family First's Jane Foreman says Victoria now has an estimated 5000 unlicensed brothels operating in suburban shopping strips, with no planning oversight and no dedicated police unit watching for human trafficking since decriminalisation. She is calling on the Allan Government to adopt the Nordic model, which criminalises buying sex and profiting from it while decriminalising those trapped in the industry.
A Herald Sun investigation (12 July 2026) has confirmed what many Victorian families already suspected: brothels have exploded across suburban shopping strips since the sex industry was decriminalised in 2022, with police and industry figures now estimating as many as 5000 operating statewide — more than double the number of illicit tobacco shops. Family First's Jane Foreman says the figures should shame a government that scrapped the very police unit meant to keep the industry in check.
“Under this government, you can need a permit to renovate your kitchen, but a brothel can open next door to a primary school without so much as a phone call to council,” said Mrs Foreman. “Decriminalisation was sold as a workplace safety reform. What Victorians actually got was total deregulation, and the government walked away.”
Victoria Police's specialist sex industry co-ordination unit — the unit responsible for investigating human trafficking and exploitation in the sex trade — was quietly closed in December 2023, with its powers of entry to brothels, warranted or not, abolished at the same time. Former investigators say the industry has become a “dirty little secret,” left to councils who look the other way as long as parking and amenity aren't affected. Meanwhile, the Kirby Institute has recorded a doubling in syphilis and gonorrhoea cases over the past decade.
“Families deserve to know who is operating in their shopping strip, and vulnerable women deserve protection from exploitation. Instead, Labor has left both to chance,” said Mrs Foreman. “There are documented cases of women brought here on student visas, stripped of their passports and worked to pay off debts they never agreed to. That is modern slavery, happening in suburban Victoria, and no one is watching for it.”
Family First does not believe the answer to Victoria's brothel boom is more deregulation — it's the Nordic model, the approach Family First has consistently called for over many years. Under this model, those selling sex are decriminalised, while buying sex and profiting from it as a pimp or brothel-keeper is criminalised, cutting off demand rather than punishing the women caught up in the industry.
Family First is calling on the Victorian Government to adopt the Nordic model, fund genuine exit pathways for women trapped in prostitution, and reinstate a dedicated police unit with the power to investigate brothels for trafficking and exploitation.
“Family First backs safe workplaces and the rule of law for everyone. But scrapping oversight altogether hasn't protected women — it has protected the pimps and traffickers profiting from them,” said Mrs Foreman. “We should be penalising the buyers and the profiteers, not looking away while vulnerable women are bought and sold in our shopping strips. This November, Victorians can vote for a government that keeps growing this industry unchecked, or for Family First, which will put families, safety and the Nordic model's proven approach into government.”
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