Page 1245 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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women's refuges, child-care and child abuse? Where were they, for instance, in the debate on women in the church, women priests?
In this debate they have deliberately used their interpretation of a woman's role in a misleading way that denigrates women. I refer in particular to Mr Speaker's comments about "our girls" and "our women". Mr Speaker, I am not your girl, I am not your woman; I do not ever wish to be, and I would thank you not to speak for me in this debate. Women are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. There has been the grossest hypocrisy, the most misleading information put forward, in an attempt to continue this platform which is not worthy of this Assembly.
Finally, our third ground for opposing this Bill is that, as Mr Collaery has spelt out, it is bad law. It is bad drafting. It involves a police state mentality which is not acceptable to the Labor team and which would not be acceptable to the ACT community. I leave it to the Assembly. I believe that commonsense will prevail. We have wasted enough time on this trivial issue. Let us put it to rest tonight.
MS MAHER (9.21): It is clear that there are many different views held in the community on the acceptability of X-rated videos and, indeed, pornographic material generally. However, I would first like to talk about the concerns that I have with some of the aspects of Mr Stevenson's Bill. Some of these have been mentioned previously. One of them is the fact that a person can be charged with possession for the purpose of distributing if he or she is found to have five or more videos. Another is the reversal of ownership in that a person has to establish proof that he or she does not hold the publications for the purpose of distribution and hire. Mr Stevenson handed me a letter earlier this evening asking me whether I would propose amendments to clauses 4, 5 and 6 of the Bill.
Further, there is the fact that there is no time limit on when premises can be searched and that the police need only consent or a warrant to search the premises. The Bill does not even differentiate between private and commercial premises.
Another point is that there has been some doubt placed on the validity of the Bill with respect to the fact that it could be viewed as an act of classification for the purpose of censorship, which is beyond the powers of this Assembly; indeed, it is a power which is specifically excluded under the terms of the self-government Act.
An issue which has been raised repeatedly during my discussions is the advertising of pornographic material - in particular, the advertising of X-rated videos in papers, magazines and junk mail. I consider this to be a problem, and we should look more seriously at the controls and
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