Page 1275 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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The document raised for consideration the question of whether the policy announced by the Attorney-General should be brought fully and immediately into effect or by stages. It stated:
You would need to have regard to repercussions in the electorate; the Australian public is notoriously conservative, whatever its political affiliations.
The Government's policy might best be achieved by a strategy of hastening slowly - gradually broadening the standards of imported material -
pornography, hard core -
so that public opinion can be developed -
or some could say moulded -
to embrace the principles embodied in the policy.
This action was carried out not by a legislative vote but by an administrative direction. That is what the Government did when it decided that Australians would watch pornography whether they like it or not. Australians were not given a vote in the matter and were not told about it. Where was the vote, Rosemary Follett? They were never given a chance. You may shrug your shoulders in exasperation. But the truth is that the Australian people were not given any choice as to whether hard-core pornography is introduced into our society. It is an interesting question.
We have been told by some people that pornography does not cause harm. Let us have a look at the result of the Federal Government's introduction of pornography into Australia. The most often quoted case of supposed justification that pornography does not cause harm is Kutchinsky's work, which was centred mainly around Copenhagen. Let us have a look at the statistics in Denmark. It legalised pornography in 1967 and in 1970 made sex education compulsory. By the way, a lot of people who do not know point to Denmark and say, "Let us look at that. What a wonderful example". Denmark promptly removed all age of consent laws with reference to sexual relations. Abortion on demand was legalised in 1973. Sexual practices that were formerly listed as crimes were removed from the statute book. What a wonderful way to get rid of some statistics! These included such acts as homosexuality, statutory rape, sodomy and indecent exposure.
What are the real facts about Denmark? Let us look at the rape statistics. The figures that Kutchinsky gave were simply wrong, as has been acknowledged the world over, but you would need to do a more detailed study of the literature. The rape statistics in Copenhagen, where Kutchinsky's main work was done, are: in 1965, 47 per
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