Page 2794 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989
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given this state of affairs, I believe that it would be ineffectual and hypocritical to impose a prohibition and to make the tax Bill here a precursor to that by defeating it.
Nevertheless, I take the view that the Government must immediately see to a tightening of the laws relating to the distribution of R-rated movies, most of which contain excessive displays of violence. It is grotesque that most video shops in this city have quantities of these movies within reach of children, and I share the views of my colleague Carmel Maher on that. Regulations should insist that R-rated movies are displayed in a separate area, to which children have no access.
I believe that this Bill should come back to this Assembly at a later stage, after the States and territories have discussed the matter and determined whether joint action is indicated. This tax is being imposed in the ACT without sufficient consultation with the industry; it is being pushed through to meet with an appropriation Bill, Chief Minister, before the video industry itself has been brought out into the open, as it probably wishes to be. It does not regard itself, to my knowledge, Chief Minister, as an industry that wants to live in the shadows. It wants to debate this issue, and I believe it should have been given better opportunity to debate this issue in a full forum and not have had to rely on the use of consultants and lobbyists to present its view in the manner it has had to do, effective though those consultants and lobbyists have been.
There should be a full review of all aspects, in my view, of the X-rated video industry, including a decision as to whether we should ask the Commonwealth Government to refer the classification power back to us, as occurs in Western Australia. This may require an amendment to the self-government Act to overcome the prohibition in section 23 of the Act, which my colleague Mr Moore mentioned.
The fact is, Mr Speaker, that I had prepared a speech - and I want to say it very honestly - to state that I was prepared to accept the lesser of the two evils in this debate. I was prepared to say that the lesser of the two evils, in my view, is to allow the regulation of this industry so that we do not force it underground and create a criminal propensity to action in this Territory. But events yesterday and today, relating to the funding of the ALP, mean that as a political reality there is no way that I, as the leader of the Residents Rally, can do anything other than make an essentially political decision on this issue. My conscience decision, I make very clear to this Assembly, would have been to support the Bill.
Yesterday evening I was going to support the Bill, but since yesterday evening I have changed my mind. That is a completely politically realistic decision, and I say that in total frankness and honesty. If that upsets members of the Liberal Party, I am sorry about that, but the fact is
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