Page 1228 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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Another publication secured at that camp is the League's Intelligence Survey. This clearly indicates that populist themes other than pornography, such as the multifunction polis and organic farming, are chosen vehicles for the deeper agenda. On that note I commend all members of the band wagon to view the film Mississippi Burning where reason, not extremism, finally prevailed.
I remind all members of the Australian Government's most recent relevant inquiry, the report of the National Committee on Violence. I note that the committee, in its final report, backed away from advocating increased censorship of X-rated movies.
The committee received a variety of submissions, one of which came from Senator Brian Harradine. Senator Harradine sought to demonstrate the adverse effects on the community of freely available non-violent erotica. I have great respect for Senator Harradine, but he knows that the causal links cannot be made in law - they can on an anecdotal basis, hence the relatively isolated examples of judges and even aggressors blaming hard-core pornography as the cause for an offence. Although I have no evidence, I suspect that the material referred to in these relatively few cases is the sort of material that I believe the chief censor should classify out. These cases cannot justify a complete ban.
In its report the committee concedes that:
Whilst ... a state of physiological arousal may be induced by a variety of stimuli and that this in turn could facilitate aggression by some individuals, in some circumstances, this does not in itself justify the prohibition of any stimulus with a tendency to evoke arousal, sexual or otherwise.
The committee pointed out that it deplored sexism and the denigration of women. However, values such as these, no less than other antisocial thoughts, it said, were best combated not by censorship, but by criticism, censure and stigmatisation in the marketplace of ideas.
To ban X-rated videos is to turn away from the complex social conditions which have given rise to them. Obviously it is not possible to legislate for such high moral values as "responsibility", "tolerance", "decency" and "restraint". These are achieved through educational, social and cultural means. If we are to achieve anything of a lasting nature, we must be realistic. We are practising the art of the possible and must not invite contempt for the law through either blatant disregard or non-enforcement.
This brings me to the June 1988 motion agreed to at the Darwin conference of the Standing Committee of Ministers Concerned with Censorship Matters to ban X-rated videos.
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