Page 2068 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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I am advised that there has been an incident where a female resident of a nursing home in Queensland received unsolicited advertising material from an X-rated video outlet in the ACT. No longer should an unsuspecting member of the public receive unsolicited mail which contains advertising material which may offend, without a fair and reasonable warning.
The Bill will compel video outlets to place their advertising material in a sealed envelope which carries a warning. That envelope will be inserted in the mailing envelope. I accept the view put to us tonight by my colleague Mr Jensen about the actual type size of the warning - that clause 7 of the Bill should contain a direction as to the size of the printing. I table a copy of the current warning being circulated by the video industry under the AVIA guidelines and I invite comment as to whether the size of that printing would be suitable.
The Bill will compel video outlets to place their material in a sealed envelope with that warning. That envelope will be inserted in a mailing envelope and the X-rated industry will be held, under penalty, to that procedure. At the moment it has a self-imposed regulation, but there seems to be some breach of it occasionally.
At the time of the previous debate on the private member's Bill introduced by Mr Stevenson, I was subjected to criticism in the Canberra Times from the parents of a minor who had been assisted in obtaining an X-rated video. That incident was orchestrated to show that the present system is fallible. In my view, no adult should assist a minor to obtain X-rated material, for whatever reason. Consequently, there is a need to impose a new offence of assisting a minor to obtain this material.
I recognise that the principal Act already exempts parents and guardians from penalties, presumably on the basis that in a home environment access can sometimes be inadvertent. This is a legislative approach inherited from the Commonwealth. Maybe there are other examples where parents are illiterate or unfamiliar with the English language and they simply use the child to order the material. I am not altogether happy with this provision and I ask parents and guardians not to exploit this exemption.
For all new orders and where there is reasonable doubt, X-rated video outlets will be required to seek confirmation of the age of the purchaser. This in itself may also serve as an effective practical restriction on parents or guardians using a minor to obtain restricted material. The industry must recognise its obligation to prevent, as far as possible, any minor from ordering this material. Reasonable measures to make the industry tighten up on checking the age of purchasers is no more than that which is imposed on other industries such as tobacco.
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