Page 2251 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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... it is particularly unfortunate that we would ever contemplate giving this credence and status to this peculiar industry which is so much detested by our fellow legislatures throughout Australia.
Mr Speaker, these men are condemned, as I said, not by my words but by their own. Mr Stefaniak said:
The ACT Liberal Party believes that the sale, distribution and exhibition of X-rated and excessively violent material in the ACT is undesirable. Consequently, a future ACT Liberal administration will bring the ACT into line with all States by banning the sale, distribution and exhibition of X-rated video and film material in the ACT.
He quoted this report of a particular case:
A man who showed a pornographic video to his stepdaughter, 11, before raping her was sentenced to 10 years' gaol yesterday.
He continued:
The Government, I think, should be more properly concerned with raising revenue from other areas.
I said earlier that it gives me absolutely no pleasure whatsoever to introduce a no-confidence motion in this house. Mr Kaine was reported in the media as saying that the matter that I raised was froth and bubble, a political matter. It is unfortunate that Mr Kaine would say such a thing when he knows full well, or should know, that I would not do such a thing. In all conscience, I could not sit by when such flagrant disregard for integrity and earlier statements had been undertaken by the majority of members in the Alliance.
Let us look at what Mr Humphries had to say in this house on 21 November. He said:
... the population of the ACT does not support the course of action which this Government takes. The opinion polls that have been quoted already by Mr Stefaniak indicate quite clearly that people in the ACT do not want this kind of industry to be flourishing and I think that, in the light of that fact, the rejection of this Bill by the Assembly tonight will be very much in accord with the spirit of the Assembly's population.
Indeed, it would have been. Mr Humphries said, "It is a pornography Bill". He went on:
I think the second reason why the Opposition opposes this legislation and, by implication,
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