Page 2064 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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doing so. Given his history of pulling stunts, I can understand why he opposes this legislation which prevents him from doing that.
The other issue that I think should be dealt with is where these publications ought or ought not be. In all of the correspondence that I received, there was not a single letter that said they should be at Fyshwick or Mitchell or some other light industrial area. Therefore, I think it is just window-dressing for Mr Collaery to run that sort of matter up the flagpole because it really is a furphy. He is just squirming and trying to occupy a different position from that of the Labor Party. As Mr Connolly said, this legislation will allow the Government to ban these sorts of publications by doing, as he quite rightly put it, what the Government does best - and that is nothing.
Mr Stevenson is back in the chamber now, so I can give him a bit of a grand plan on how he might be able to handle the Government in relation to this issue. I will give him two or three free kicks. First, Mr Stevenson may wish to put pressure on a few of the Government members. On past performances in this place, it has been seven to three against. So, if Mr Collaery tries to make a decision about the regulations, he will be outnumbered. So, Mr Stevenson, there is your first chance. If you get stuck into Government members again, make sure that they put the pressure on Mr Collaery when it comes to making the regulations. You can do it outside this piece of legislation and I will have a small wager that the result will be seven to three against.
Even if the regulations do get through, you can have another lash because you can then move to disallow them. I can see two or three free kicks here because of the ineptitude of the Government in putting forward this piece of legislation. Basically what it boils down to is a number of free kicks to Mr Stevenson and a chance for the Government to cop out by doing nothing. I say that this is another one of Mr Collaery's schemes whereby he can lose on the issue of X-rated videos and blame somebody else, as he does with a whole range of other matters.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (9.13), in reply: I thank members for their comments. I have tried to distil the rhetoric from the factual points about the Bill. I will move to what I see as factual comment initially and I will come back perhaps to the rhetoric to round off my speech. Mr Moore asked why the Bill was being brought in so quickly. I think he used the words, somewhat ironically, "indecent haste".
Mr Moore: I did indeed.
MR COLLAERY: He indicated that there seemed to be a rush about it. There has been a very long debate in the community and nationally about this issue. It has probably brought little credit to the ACT overall and it is as well
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