Page 1237 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia to ask them to take up where their committee report left off. This committee report makes clear the objection to the NVE category, the objection to hard-core pornography and the evidence for that objection. That committee should move within the Parliament of Australia to get Commonwealth legislation appropriate to the matter we are discussing.
It is for the Federal Government to put together the fact that formal censorship of films and videos is a matter not for us, not for individual States, but for the Commonwealth as a whole because of the need for common legislation for the whole of Australia. However, if we fail to pass this Bill tonight, we say to our fellow Australians that we, the 17 members of the Legislative Assembly of the ACT, are arbitrarily deciding what is right and wrong about the laws of their States. I believe that is terribly wrong.
MR PROWSE (8.52): At the outset, let me say that in Mr Stevenson's Bill there are details with which I disagree; for example, having the five or more videos in one's premises. I take note of the fact that Mr Stevenson has offered to withdraw those disagreeable aspects.
This is not a debate on censorship. We have censorship at this time. All modern societies have censorship; all primitive societies had censorship. Therefore, let us not be drawn into the debate on that issue. It is a false claim by those who state that we are looking to censor the public. Those who are concerned with the moral standards, the lack of joy of life, in our society are looking to draw the line a little higher than the censorship debate. That is what we are on about now.
I believe that there has been an error in judgment in permitting the X-rated classification the freedom of distribution that has been allowed. Why ban X-rated distribution? Our society has been brain-washed; it has been desensitised into believing that the behaviour depicted in non-violent erotica - let us get it straight, it is pornography - is the norm. That is not the way I believe any member of this Assembly wishes to have our society think. I do not believe that for one minute, and I believe those who argue on other aspects have been misled and are misleading those to whom they speak.
Some members have asked whether there is any harm. It is very difficult to measure the harm associated with pornography, but I can give a personal example.
Mr Moore: Anecdotal.
MR PROWSE: Anecdotal. We need to have the situation tried and tested in a laboratory; otherwise some people cannot see the wood for the trees. Please listen and you may learn. As an alternative medical practitioner at the South Coast, I had a young lass come to me with a number of complaints which I will call "ladies problems". She was 15
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