Page 1250 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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article by Hugo Kelly, headed "X-rated videos banned, controls on violence", in the Melbourne Age, dated 1 July 1988. It states:
All X-rated video material will be banned throughout Australia, the state and federal attorneys-general decided yesterday.
The ban will end Australia's legal $25 million-a-year pornographic video industry, which has thrived since X-rated videotapes were legalised in 1984.
The attorneys-general also moved to crack down on video violence, and endorsed a comprehensive labelling system that will clearly identify the level of violence, bad language and sexual activity on videotapes sold and hired in Australia.
A few moments ago, I said that I was not sure why the X-rated video issue was still on the political agenda. I suggest the reason is that the Federal Labor Caucus of November 1988 supposedly set up a working party, just as the Prime Minister, in answering a question on an X-rated mail-order video, had a whim about setting up a committee; it was not really fair dinkum about supporting the unanimous view of the Attorneys-General. However, that committee never met, and I understand that by May 1989 nobody expected it to do so.
So, again, the Federal Labor Government, although having agreed with the States in July 1988 to address this very important issue, by May 1989 did not care sufficiently about our children to impose a ban on X-rated material. The Federal Labor Government has a good - I question the word "good" - record in addressing issues concerning youth: no child will live in poverty by 1990 and no child will be able to have access to X-rated videos. It is 1990, yet children still live in poverty and X-rated videos are freely available by mail order around Australia.
I believe X-rated videos are demeaning to both men and women, and women are treated like sexual commodities in such videos. I would have thought that most women's organisations would support such legislation to ban X-rated video material. Did other women in this chamber contact women's organisations for their views? For example, what is the view of the ACT Women's Consultative Committee, WEL, the Catholic Women's League, the CWA, the National Association of Community-based Children's Services, the National Status of Women Committee, the Women's Action Alliance, the Anglican Mothers Union of Australia, the Australian Church Women, the Society of Women Writers in Australia, the War Widows Guild of Australia, the Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women, to name but a few? I am sure most of these and other women's organisations would support the banning of such material.
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