Page 1968 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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interest in this matter is not confined to the debates in this Assembly. There have been public rallies here in the ACT and broad media coverage of the issues. Hundreds of letters have been received by members of the Assembly from ACT residents and from correspondents in other parts of Australia. Members have also received personal representations from residents and others.
The Government has been disappointed with the apparent poor level of understanding of the issues surrounding X-rated videos and what appears to be the lack of vigorous action from the Commonwealth and the States in addressing this matter through their own legislative controls. There are no simple answers to this complex matter and no single jurisdiction such as the ACT can solve the problem. It requires a national approach. At the moment, the ACT is being asked to be everybody's keeper.
The Commonwealth has reserved to itself the power to make laws with respect to the classification of materials for the purposes of censorship. So far as the ACT is concerned, it is the Commonwealth alone which determines what is permissible in publications, including films and videos. The Commonwealth could revise its classifications and refuse to classify as X-rated films and videos which contain consenting, sexually explicit material, or the Commonwealth could create a subclassification of, say, "RV" for films and videos which portray senseless and gratuitous violence. The Commonwealth is ideally placed to impose a more restrictive regime on films and videos as, apart from its classification function, it also has exclusive control over all imports from overseas.
As a member of the Standing Committee of Ministers Concerned with Censorship Matters, I have given notice that I want the matter of controls over X-rated material considered at the national level. I understand, for example, that there is a large trade in the illicit videos in those States which have laws banning the sale or distribution of X-rated videos. I am advised that the origin of this material is not necessarily from the mail order outlets in the ACT. I gather that a large percentage of the material is being made in at least one of those States.
Mr Speaker, the issue of mail order is another example as exclusive authority for the control of the postal system rests with the Commonwealth. It is open to the Commonwealth to tighten controls over the use of the postal system for the distribution of what is, to some people, offensive material. However, I do not exclude the role that the ACT can play in this matter of controls over restricted publications.
The Publications Control (Amendment) Bill 1990 [No. 3] introduces the following measures: restriction of the sale and distribution of X-rated videos to the industrial areas of Canberra - Fyshwick, Hume and Mitchell; tighter controls
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