Page 2055 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
administrator in north Queensland has advised that cases of child sexual abuse have become unbelievable only in the last five years. Why? Since the arrival of porn videos. Many sexual offences were allegedly connected with porn videos. The Judith Atkinson research was submitted to the National Committee on Violence in September 1989 - 30 pages indicating the violence caused to the Aboriginal people.
Let us look at what is said in Violence: Directions for Australia from the National Committee on Violence. This rather bulky report is the result of the very expensive use of taxpayers' funds to research violence in Australia. Let us see what that committee did with the 30-page report from Judith Atkinson in which she said that porn videos had caused the problem for Aborigines. The committee mentions that there is a 10 times higher homicide rate in Aboriginal communities than in the general community. It also mentions that Aboriginal females in the Northern Territory comprised 79 per cent of all deaths. The report says of Judith Atkinson's studies:
She reported that domestic violence affects 90 per cent of Aboriginal families living in trust areas of Queensland, and that more women have died ... in one Queensland community alone than all the custodial deaths occurring in that State.
It continues:
The anecdotes which Ms Atkinson related are horrific. Young boys in one community are said to be selling their younger sisters to older boys to pay gambling debts or to buy cans of beer. Young girls from eight years upwards are being sexually misused by adult men (white and black) in return for beer.
Not only are young men raping older women, but old men are abusing young girls. In some cases this abuse is so serious as to require surgical treatment.
On reading this publication, one finds an amazing thing. The cause of the reported problem has been sanitised from this book. Nowhere in this document does the committee mention that the cause is pornographic videos. I really find it interesting that some people think this is funny. Mr Connolly and Mr Berry, have smiles on their faces - - -
Mr Connolly: If you do not agree with the result, you say it is a conspiracy and censorship. That is not what they found.
MR STEVENSON: Why do we not have a look at what happened? This is a report on material presented to the committee. The major material presented to it, Mr Connolly, highlighted the cause as pornographic videos. Would it not be reasonable to include that fact in there? I wonder why
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .