Adele Carles is no friend of the HIV sector, no friend of STI prevention, and her $5.5 million sex worker 'rescue' centre is going to cost the WA Liberals, and any future government, that friendship as well.

What will it cost sex workers? Our ability to protect ourselves. Our health. And our dignity.

Such a well funded centre in her electorate would be enough to pork barrel Adele Carles through at least one or two more elections. So she gets to keep her job, by trying to rescue us from ours.

How is a sex worker 'rescue' centre a pork barrel? It will create a willing workforce of welfare staff, health workers and women's policy professionals who will put their weekends on the line in order to ensure Carles' re-election for years to come. Outcomes for sex workers' occupational health and safety? Decimated. Destroyed. Our voices ignored.

The sex worker rescue centre is being horse-traded in Western Australia at the moment for votes over Christian Porter's anti-sex work Prostitution Bill. Doomed from the start, Porter authored the Bill by not listening to his own policy staff, ignoring sex workers and the sex worker movement, and thumbing his nose at the Liberal's own 'numbers people'.

As a result, it is now down to the wire. With a lack of buy-in from the industry, total opposition from the churches and zero support from both the ALP and the Greens, suddenly Independent MP for Fremantle, Adele Carles, has the power to call the shots, and is pushing amendments that make the bill almost unrecognisable. The only question now is, "How much will Barnett pay for Carles' vote?"

But it is the hidden costs of Carles' pork barrel that are going to bite West Australians for years to come, due the change of direction on HIV and STI prevention that the Carles' deal necessitates.

Parliamentarians don't take interest declarations seriously, ROSS FITZGERALD writes.

When the Australian Sex Party's president, Fiona Patten, called for a register of religious interests to be set up for federal MPs a couple of weeks ago, it piqued my interest. She claimed that within the register of members' interests, section 13 required them to list their involvement with religious organisations. As the federal government gives millions of dollars to religious organisations every year, she argued that religious affiliation had the potential to cause a conflict of interest just as much as owning shares in BHP or holding a company directorship.

When I comment on moral or social issues, I have long declared my status as a recovering alcoholic, now sober for 42 years.

Alcohol is deeply imbedded in the psyche of this country and helps frame many of our national debates both through the effects it has on the private lives of individuals and families, and also by the pressure that alcohol companies exert on federal, state, and territory parliaments.

My declaration is important when I comment on issues ranging from drug law reform through to domestic violence, youth suicide, mental health, corrective services and a host of other matters. My relationship with alcohol is integral to many of my opinions on our social, moral and cultural life.

For a member of Parliament, who not only comments on social life but actively creates the parameters of it for millions of people, declarations of private interests are much more important. It is entirely appropriate for an MP to declare their personal financial interests in such a way that any of the taxpayers who pay their wages can view this information.

With this in mind, I had a close look at the members' interest statements of the 43rd Parliament and was quietly shocked at the dismissive attitudes and the short shrift paid to this register by many MPs. It also took me almost an hour to find this information on Parliament's website.

A demonstration outside NSW Parliament last Friday called for the legalisation of marijuana.

A few weeks earlier, Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, indicated his support for decriminalising low-level drug use.

The only other parliamentarian to support the move was NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge.

He is in favour of decriminalising cannabis for medicinal purposes and cited the US as an example.

More than 16 of its states have now moved to decriminalise prescribed cannabis.

“The failure to allow doctors to prescribe cannabis when it is recognised as the only viable medication for many people suffering chronic ongoing pain is proof positive of the fact that the war on drugs is more about ideology than reason,” he said.

Mr Carrs position on legalising marijuana was questioned by the Cannabis Coalition’s Macizza Macpherson who said the foreign minister had a chance to do it when he was NSW Premier.

“It doesnt really wash to come out now with his very qualified support. It`s actions that count, not words. We need brave legislators who are prepared to stand for their principles.”

UPDATE (24/4): ReachTel has published an automated phone poll for South Brisbane, and while the sample is small (300), the result is good news for Labor, putting their primary vote at 44% (up five on the election) with the LNP down three-and-a-half to 34.5% and the Greens up one to 19%. Tellingly, 56.5% say the size of the LNP’s majority makes them less likely to vote for them (against 19.5% more likely), with “size of the LNP’s majority” ranking second on a list of six issues rated as most important (less happily for Labor, cost of living ranks first). A ReachTel poll on the lord mayoralty will follow tomorrow.

Another trip to the polling booth for Queensland voters next week, this time to vote in local government elections and, for the lucky residents of the capital’s inner south, to choose a successor to Anna Bligh in South Brisbane, one of just seven seats in which Labor was spared defeat on March 24. Bligh survived a 10.3% swing to hold on by a margin of 4.7%, her primary vote down from 48.4% to 38.6% with the LNP up from 27.9% to 38.1% and the Greens up from 17.5% to 18.1%.

(Australian Sex Party Note: Australian Sex Party Independent Rory Killen is top of the ballot for the Brisbane Lord Mayor.  Vote 1 for Rory!)

Lord Mayor Cr Graham Quirk and Labor lord mayoral hopeful Ray Smith joined in an hour-long online blog on the Courier-Mail's website this morning [Monday] to answer questions from ratepayers on everything from rates to parking and their views on cycling infrastructure.

The Brisbane City Council poll will take place on Saturday with more than 670,000 residents enrolled to have their say.

Five people have put up their hands for the lord mayoralty including Cr Quirk, Mr Smith, Greens candidate Andrew Bartlett, independent Chris Carson and Australian Sex Party candidate Rory Killen.

With five days to go Cr Quirk remains the front-runner.

His policies include 360 new buses over four years, $120 million on cycling infrastructure and new citycat terminals at Milton and Bulimba.

Mr Smith, meanwhile, has pledged an $800 million roads package and $100 million for cycling infrastructure along with an inflation rates cap for owner occupiers to help ease the cost of living burden.

Cr Quirk is yet to announce his rates policy with both major parties to release their costings in the coming days.

Source: The Courier-Mail

Queensland organisers of this year's SlutWalk are keen to surpass last year's success, when they take to the streets on May 19 as part of a worldwide campaign against slut-shaming and victim-blaming in sexual assault.

In the inaugural walk last May, 1300 Queenslanders joined an international campaign against sexual assault and rape culture conceived in response to a Toronto police officer's comments advising that women should 'avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized'.

The protest has since spread across the world, and will be held again in Brisbane on May 19, 1pm, at King George Square, followed by an afterparty at Spring Hill Hotel at 5pm.

Anne Watson, Coordinator of the Queensland Branch of the Australian Sex Party and co-organiser of SlutWalk Brisbane, said, "The idea that some women are 'asking for it' by virtue of what they're wearing is absurd."

"Suggesting that dress or behaviour makes someone in any way responsible for their assault is a myth.

"It is this mentality that prevents many women from coming forward after being sexually assaulted, and it condones the behaviour of sexual predators."