Page 1220 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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When I asked, "How important is this issue?", they replied, "X-rated videos - don't know anything about them; haven't seen any". That was the response from people in Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane. Apart from a very few, nobody there knows anything about the issue at all.
Mr Kaine: What about in Canberra?
MR MOORE: You know that I do not have any friends in Canberra!
The very few who like to refer to themselves as "the moral majority", modelling themselves on people in the US, have taken the issue totally out of proportion. In the US there may be some reason for them to refer to themselves as the moral majority, because in that country 35 per cent of the people vote for their government so it takes about 20 per cent of the people to make a majority. Also, we know they are much more conservative there; they have their Bible Belt down the middle of the United States. So it is a possibility that 20 per cent of the people there do form the moral majority.
In Australia, however, with our compulsory voting system, roughly 95 to 98 per cent of the people vote. A majority requires roughly 50 per cent. So, can our "moral majority" ever be considered a moral majority? Certainly not. There was only one party that went into the ACT election on the issue of censorship and pornography, and that was the Family Team. Since that party adopted its anti-pornographic stance, it has been going backwards. The election statistics on page 1 of the Australian Electoral Commission's report on the ACT election of 4 March 1989 show that the Family Team drew precisely 2.74 per cent of the primary vote - and they are the people who went to the election on this issue. It is a non-issue.
Those people have telephoned and written to members and have had the gall to suggest that we should be representing the majority opinion - a 2.74 per cent majority opinion. That is absolute nonsense. If they want to refer to themselves as the moral anything, perhaps they should opt for "moral minority" or even "moral minuscule-ority".
What we really need is for people to recognise parental responsibility; that is the issue here. When a person stands up and opposes this Bill, that does not mean that he or she is one of the lords of lust.
Mr Duby: Or princes of porn.
MR MOORE: Yes, or princes of porn. Thank you, Mr Duby. You were probably going to use that phrase yourself; now I have ruined it!
All classified material that comes from the chief censor now has advice on it, explaining the reasons for its rating - whether it be G, M or X. This puts the
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