Page 2266 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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the Liberal Party; Mr Jensen, who has expressed his opposition to Mr Collaery's view on this, and he is entitled to do that in the Rally; and Dr Kinloch. You all have the power now to exercise your views on this and to achieve what you want, or what you say you want, which may, of course, be two very different things. You cannot get away any longer with this humbug that you would prefer to ban it. This factor will further test the Alliance Government. We in the Opposition say that you have already displayed your lack of integrity, lack of credibility and extreme hypocrisy by passing into law the tax Bills which you so piously condemned from opposition. We say that that alone is sufficient to justify the Assembly supporting this motion. But, Mr Speaker, there is the additional little twist, the fact that, through what was probably merely a drafting quirk, the Government now has the power to ban the material if it wants to. This will again test its integrity and credibility. We are sure that it will be found wanting, as always.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (11.33): Mr Speaker, in my remarks today I want to first of all address one of the comments made by Mr Connolly just a moment ago. He referred to the fact that the ball was back in the Government's court. Mr Connolly's suggestion, as I understand it, was that the majority given to the Publications Control (Amendment) Act the other night secures in the Attorney-General's hands the power to effectively ban X-rated videos in the Territory. Mr Connolly suggests that the members of the Government who sit in the joint party room should go in there and force the hand of Mr Collaery, a well known opponent of a ban on X-rated videos, and ensure that the Assembly sees a ban on X-rated videos. I must admit that there is a certain temptation in that suggestion, Mr Connolly. You strike a chord there. However, I am reminded that when voting on this issue some while ago the Assembly resolved it very clearly. It very clearly said that it - as an Assembly, as the parliament of the Territory and as the body responsible for the question of whether or not X-rated videos are circulated in and from the ACT - would not ban X-rated videos.
Mr Connolly seems to suggest that we, in the Government, should fly in the face of that decision; we should flout the authority of the Assembly; and we should reject the clear decision of the Assembly on that occasion. I am interested in the sort of approach Mr Connolly takes. It hardly seems very democratic, but of course I do not expect members of the Labor Party to pursue a line which is terribly democratic on the best of occasions.
Doing what Mr Connolly suggests would entail a very much greater moral dilemma for Mr Connolly than perhaps he has envisaged, because, when X-rated videos had been banned by stealth in the manner that he suggests, the Australian Labor Party in the Australian Capital Territory would be in the embarrassing position of having to hand back its $8,500
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