Page 2793 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989
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has an agenda item on this issue, in view of the active work of, I believe, Senator Walters, it is interesting to note that we are bringing a Bill through at this stage. It is interesting in the sense that there is likely to be some Federal interaction with the Territory in the event that a Liberal Federal government is elected in February or March. That may affect our overall relations to some extent, and it is a consideration in the aggregate. I mention that merely in terms of its significance.
Certainly, the video industry would be aware of the potentiality of a Federal Liberal decision at Commonwealth censorship level on the issue, and that may well be, for all I know, a factor in the expedition with which this Bill is received in the ACT Assembly.
Mr Speaker, we do have elsewhere in Australia uniform payroll tax and other government taxing legislation. There is no evidence, as far as I know, that we sought to contact the States to determine whether they are interested in a uniform legislative basis for the taxing of this industry.
Mr Speaker, I will now relate the other issues that I have in mind. Firstly, I join Michael Moore in saying, "Let us not be hypocritical on this issue". To the best of my knowledge, the X-rated video industry is alive and flourishing throughout Australia. It operates in conditions which range from the tacit to the inept. I believe that, across that spectrum, elements of corruption come into the pornography industry, as has been amply illustrated in Queensland in recent times.
I do not simply accept the argument that all States have banned the matter and therefore the ACT should step into line. If all other States and territories were serious, it would not be there, but clearly there is no will or capacity to do that. As an Assembly person and after my years of facing reality in the courts and the criminal justice system, I am not prepared to argue this issue on a fictional basis. The fact is that, were we to ban X videos, Canberra might get its own large-scale illegal industry. This would become a corrupting influence close to the centre of power of our nation. It could lead to a degree of cynicism and hypocrisy, even in this Assembly. I am not personally prepared - and I respect the views offered by my colleague Carmel Maher - to contribute to that state of affairs in this Territory.
Were the Federal Government to change and to introduce a ban and were the criminal justice system capable of proving itself capable of supporting a film classification system that we could police, which would remove some of the violent films and the hard-core pornography from sale and distribution, I would cooperate. But at this stage one must face reality, and that is that the chief censor has created a situation that allows these matters to take their place alongside artistic and, to some extent as I think you, Mr Speaker, indicated, therapeutic erotica. But,
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