Page 2051 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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the light industrial areas, and I might say that his Bill did do just that - none of the prescribed areas nonsense that Mr Collaery has indicated. It is instructive to look back at Mr Collaery's speech on that occasion. For a start, it must be said that Mr Collaery was extremely rude and vindictive. It would not be unreasonable to suggest that his principal reason for opposing Mr Moore's motion was that he did not like being beaten to the punch.
I have already mentioned Mr Collaery's concern about small business, something that he has not tackled at all in introducing this Bill. But in that speech, Mr Collaery said - and again I will quote:
The questions of X-rated videos, interstate practice and controls and the activities and correlated events around sex shops need to be discussed at national level. It will be discussed at the next meeting of the States Attorneys-General in June.
Mr Speaker, if that is the case, why has Mr Collaery introduced this Bill now in advance of that meeting? He is hoist with his own petard and now he is leaving the chamber, a little bit red-faced. The truth is that he was just not prepared to vote in favour of something introduced by Mr Moore, even though it expressed his own policy.
This Bill shows that the Government cannot be relied upon to proceed with any predictability or any stability. The Labor Party opposes the Bill because we have been given absolutely no reason to restrict X-rated material to prescribed areas, nor have we been given any hard evidence of what those prescribed areas might be. We object to government by whim in this area, as in so many other areas.
MR STEFANIAK (8.26): Firstly, in relation to this particular Bill, I should restate the Liberal Party's position. We have consistently voted against X-rated videos in the two Bills that have come up so far. Having failed in that, it is painfully obvious to us that the majority in this Assembly wished not to ban X-rated videos in the ACT. That being said, it remains Liberal Party policy that the sale, distribution and exhibition of X-rated and excessively violent material in the ACT are undesirable. Consequently a future ACT Liberal administration will bring the ACT into line with all other States by banning the sale, distribution and exhibition of X-rated videos and film material in the ACT and will review the film and video classifications so that excessively violent material is banned. Given that we cannot do that now - but the numbers are obviously here in the Assembly for some restriction - we support this Bill, along with other members of the Alliance Government.
Ms Follett mentioned a number of points which I think I should comment on. Firstly, she talked about the prescribed areas. Now, prescribed areas - as her colleague
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