Page 2250 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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one will be deplored by anybody of conscience. I note that almost every one of the members of the Alliance have their heads down - now they are up - and I can well understand why that is.
Mr Collaery: You will get your answer.
MR STEVENSON: It is not my answer that I want. I speak on behalf of the people of the ACT who have been sold out. It is good that they will get the answer, and I hope that they will get their answer from every single member of the Alliance who has sold out his or her integrity for, in the words of the Chief Minister, "a fistful of dollars to gain loot from lust". It is not that I want to make individuals wrong but that I want to make justice and parliamentary principle right. If integrity and honesty had anything to do with it you would not be sitting in the seat with the lack of integrity that you have shown.
Mr Speaker, let us look at what the other members of the Assembly said in the debate on 21 November. Dr Kinloch said:
X-rated videos of several kinds are not only shown in the ACT, not only sold and hired out in the ACT, but are provided by mail to a clientele elsewhere in Australia, including those six States already named which ban the sale, distribution and public showing of such films. That is the crucial issue for me.
Dr Kinloch continued:
The issue for me, then, is very clear and it is the reason for refusing to build that industry into our revenue collection system in the ACT and the reason why I will be voting against this Bill. By giving status to the mailing of X-rated video films across our borders, first into New South Wales and in due course to the other States with the exception of the Northern Territory, we are, at the very least, violating the spirit of the laws of six States.
Yet we are the national city. We are, like it or not, the exemplar city of the nation. At the moment, it is under inherited Commonwealth laws that these things are done. The moment such a law as is proposed tonight is passed we would be, as a Legislative Assembly, saying to six other State governments, "We don't care what your legislation is, what your values are, what your standards are, what your public behaviour aims are; we are supporting an industry which, in essence, flouts or avoids or undermines your laws".
He went on:
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