That sex workers are working in WA mining towns (Fly-in, fly-out hookers join NW boom times, 1/1) as they have done for more than a century, is hardly newsworthy. Nor is it particularly newsworthy that single miners, unable to sustain a relationship while working away from home, might visit sex workers during their time off. Aside from providing The West with the opportunity to use the word "hooker" in the title, the motivation behind this article about nothing is a mystery to me.

The only focus appears to be the number of miners a sex worker sees in a day, with anti-sex work campaigner Linda Watson pointing out how much stress that puts on sex workers’ bodies. (I must have missed the part lamenting the strain that mining work places on the bodies of their clients). These comments seek only to reinforce the notion that sex work is different to other forms of labour, based on the assumption that sex itself is inherently "bad". Thus the more clients a sex worker sees in a day, the more abhorrent her situation becomes. Well, here’s another not-so-newsworthy newsflash for your readers – sex workers, by definition, have sex for a living and the more clients they see, the more money they make. We would not pity a hairdresser or salesman who manages to secure 12 paying customers a day.

Can we expect a future article about the retail outlets, publicans, landlords, and of course the ATO, who are also lining their pockets with proceeds from the resources boom? I won't hold my breath. "Fly-in, fly-out workboot salesmen join NW boom times" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it.