The ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ who work around the Cross

Press, 18 February 1983, Page 17

The ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ who work around the Cross

The Sydney police say there are also New Zealanders controlling prostitution.

Compared with many of the absurdly young girls parading past the “Pussycat” and other parlours in Darlinghurst Road, King's Cross, in short-short skirts and tight tops: French ladies of the night in the red light district of Paris look positively discreet.

The girls of the Cross work for the owners of parlours, like “The Pleasure Chest,” who take a cut. On Saturday nights, car-loads of yelling yobboes draw up and pimps in tight black jeans are busy. Sadie, a stout blonde of indeterminate age, who once owned a night club, now takes charge of a parlour. She says it is one of many owned and operated by a New Zealander who drives a big black Mercedes. Most of the working girls are on heroin, she says. But there are no Kiwi girls at her place.

Julie drifts in. She knows Tess Lim, a social worker with Metta (see yesterday’s article), who has undertaken to show me round the Cross. Julie, who wants to travel to Europe, is a Kiwi. She works for a parlour out of the central Cross area, the streets of which are a “closed shop” to all except

girls working for the "Mr Bigs” of prostitution. She earns $5O a time, of which $3O goes to the parlour. She is pale, quiet, and vacant. Tess says later the girl is stupid. Sadie says the heroin habit for the girls of the Cross could cost $6OO a day. We sit outside.a cafe sipping coffee, for which the waitress demands payment immediately on serving. Two teen-aged street girls hand over rolls of $2O notes to an over-weight man who counts them and walks off. An empty double-decker tourist bus wheels around the corner.

Tess talks to Karen whom she found “shooting up” in the women's toilet of the cafe. Karen is in trouble with the law. Tess promises to help. “You could come off the habit if you want to,” says Tess. “Why did you start?" “I wanted to be like all the other kids ...”

We leave, with Tess promising to be at the Liverpool Court on such and such a date.

We turn down past the Barrel Adult Theatre with its male and female nude review. We walk past the Nevada, an ornate, balconied, timbered building which looks as though it has come out of New Orleans.

Girls lean over the rails above huge lettering advertising, “The largest bed in Australia.”

(I stopped to take a photograph the next day, but one of the girls angrily called out, "Piss off.” I did. Some tourists are clobbered by girls wielding disco handbags with a brick in them.)

We are joined by Paul, one of the leaders of the gay community of the Cross. He is upset about the raiding of a gays’ club by police.

“It was all a terrible mistake. Someone tipped off the cops that there was something illegal going on. It was a private club. “They hauled dozens of these guys off from the holy of holies, and took them to the station in Darlinghurst where they charged them. They are so sensitive. There could be violence.”

We walked up to Darley Street, known for its New Zealand girls, I was told. A girl stood on each of the four corners of an intersection — one shivered slightly in a swimsuit, another wore a fishnet skirt. Old terraced houses brooded behind iron fences, and there was a glow from a hot-dog stand. Pale, moon-faced figures stared out from a barred window at 239 Victoria Street. “That's a famous ad-

dress,” said Paul. “Been a brothel for a long time.” In the “Bottoms Up” bar of the Rex Hotel, drag queens gather, shouting above the rock music being belted out endlessly. Tess homes in on Brian, a 17-year-old Maori boy; she knows he is working as a male prostitute. She tries to persuade him to give up waiting with other youths to be picked up from seats near the famous El Alamein Fountain. He is non-commital and sheepish — apparently he doesn’t get on with his father.

I am introduced to Max, quietly spoken and obviously well educated. He wears a grotesque black wig, has redpainted fingernails and women’s print dress and shoes.

He tells me of his German father and Cook Islands mother. He teaches English, can speak four languages. His parents live in France.'’ He is not sure about his job. He doesn’t like the drugs, the pub, the life, “but where else can I go?”

He hates his father, who would not allow him to speak English when they lived in New Zealand. •

“The trouble with Sydney is that there are so few flowers," says Max. “And those there are have no

scent,” he adds wistfully. We walk away and Tess spies another young New Zealand boy, lurking near the fountain. “You don’t look well Roy,” she says.

. “I feel crook. Yes, I'm going back home tomorrow," he promises. He assures Tess he has somewhere to sleep. “That boy is 10 years old,” says Tess, with some feeling. The pubs will serve anyone. Tess points out Cerina. a 13-year-old New Zealand girl on the street. “I don't like to see any girl making a mess of her life."

But when she spoke to Cerina last, the girl said: “What do I care? I haven't got nothing, have I? Don't want to go back to bloody Auckland.”

According to the chief of the Sydney vice squad, Detective-Sergeant ' John Ellsworthy, New Zealanders do not show up in prostitution any more or less than those from New South Wales or any other state. “But we do notice the number of Maoris among drag queens, who have their proportion of drug addicts.” The vice squad head says there are only four offences in New South Wales — a girl may not offer herself for prostitution in a massage parlour or spa bar; it is an offence to live off the earnings of a prostitute, to man-

age a brothel, and to advertise it as such. He estimates there are 300 prostitutes on the streets and about 100 parlours, apart from high-class clubs. The squad makes many arrests for drug offences. Mr Ellsworthy says drag queens can become troublesome at times, soliciting and stopping cars. Sydney's police has never

had a spotless reputation, but then in terms of the “them-versus-us” attitudes of the Sydney underworld,, allegations of corruption can be expected. Allegations that police are involved in drug dealing were countered by one officer at Bondi who maintained it was very isolated; and in a force the size of Sydney's, it was inevitable

some police would succumb The Drug Squad says that any allegations against police officers are pursued with the utmost vigour. Some convictions have been made. A New Zealander working in the Cross told me a good friend had been “busted” on drug trafficking by the police. A “$20,000 pay off to the police” enabled him to escape prosecution.