Page 2774 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989
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relation to any other issue. This issue is about a tax on a legal product, a product about which we have no powers whatsoever to effect a classification. It is simply a revenue item.
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 9.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr Whalan: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.
Question resolved in the negative.
BUSINESS FRANCHISE ("X" VIDEOS) BILL 1989
[COGNATE BILL:
TAXATION (ADMINISTRATION) (AMENDMENT) BILL 1989]
Debate resumed.
MR DUBY: As I was saying, this debate has been hijacked by opponents - not of this tax, because I am positive that deep down they all realise this is, as taxes go, a pretty fair and equitable tax - but by people who, for whatever reason they have, and I believe there are some peculiar reasons behind their logic, wish to broaden the debate about this taxation measure into one of support or not support of X-rated videos, of pornographic material, about classification and about banning.
As I have said, the hypocrisy that we have heard from various speakers today has absolutely astounded me. I suppose Mr Kaine started it off with his description of pornographic material as being the basis on which we were raising a tax. He tried to maintain that pornographic material, which he went on to describe as predominantly violent material concerning the degradation of women and the degradation of other folk, is what the Government is trying to tax. Mr Kaine, I am sure, knows as well as does every other member in this house, as does every member of this Assembly here today, that X-rated videos, X-rated material, material that has been classified by people who are far better qualified than any of us here to rate this material, has been rated as X simply because it is non-violent erotic material. It involves intimate details - I suppose that is the way to put it - of people engaging in probably what is the most natural activity in the world.
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