Page 2078 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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The franchise schemes already in force in the ACT in the areas of tobacco and petroleum are proven and effective revenue raisers. However, there still may be opportunities for avoidance of licence fees. This Bill deals with the possibility by introducing an up-front ad valorem licence fee, payable prior to the granting of each monthly licence.
In conclusion, the estimated $4m in fees anticipated from the X-rated video business franchise scheme will provide important additional revenue which will help the Alliance Government to balance the 1990-91 budget and future budgets. It will also contribute to the continuation of the high standard of service provisions that the Canberra community is used to. I commend the Bill to the Assembly.
MR STEVENSON (10.09): The fact that the industry will be taxed if this Bill is passed makes X-rated videos in Canberra, and hence around Australia, legal. The majority of members of the Alliance Government made that claim vehemently when they joined with me to form the majority to vote against and defeat the Labor Party tax on X-rated videos.
Why is it a problem to make X-rated videos legal? Since we last had our debate, a New Scientist article has given a quite extensive indication of the problems. Perhaps one of the major ones is the study that a number of people have used in this Assembly to suggest that there is nothing particularly wrong with X-rated videos. That was the Kutchinsky study in Denmark, which showed that sex crimes had decreased somewhat after the restrictions on pornography were drastically reduced.
It mentions here that minor crimes such as indecent exposure and peeping did indeed fall but serious crimes such as attempted rape and rape increased. I think that puts the case better than anything else because Kutchinsky is the one study that is used by those people who try to suggest that X-rated pornography does not cause harm and that any statement to the contrary is ludicrous and appalling.
Indeed the Australian Institute of Criminology totally misrepresented the matter in a media release of 23 April when it said that, while there might be some evidence to suggest that violent sexual movies might cause some antisocial behaviour, there was no evidence that "normal, loving, sexual relationships" did so. Indeed, there probably is not. Nor would there be for playing ping-pong or holding hands. But what "normal, loving, sexual relationships" have got to do with pornography or X-rated videos only the institute would be able to explain.
I issued a media release at the time indicating that that press statement was absolutely misleading, and the fact that the institute would use its position as supposedly an authority in the area and public funds to so misrepresent the situation showed that perhaps it had gone for far too long without peer review.
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