Page 5044 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Worldwide research shows that an increase in pornography increases violence and sexual attacks against women and children. In 1970 in South Australia, with reported rapes less than three per 100,000, laws restricting pornography were modified. By 1984-85 rape had increased ninefold to over 25 per 100,000. During that same period the Queensland statistic, which began at just over three per 100,000, rose to only 5.3 per 100,000.
In 1974 in Hawaii, after the availability of pornography was restricted, reported rapes fell by over 20 per cent in two years. They did not increase because of prohibition. After two years of substantial reductions in rape the restrictions were removed. The result is that rape in Hawaii has been increasing ever since. Three major inquiries into the effects of pornography - the 1970 UK Longford report; the 1986 US Attorney-General's commission into pornography, named the Meese report; and our own 1988 joint select committee into video materials - each found that pornography, equivalent to that found on the X-rated videos which are freely available in Canberra, causes some people to resort to violence.
In over 300 hours of research into studies on the effects of pornography throughout the world, I have not seen a single case where an increase in pornography did not lead to an increase in reported rape, or conversely, where a decrease in pornography did not lead to a decrease in rape. The evidence fully supports what commonsense tells us - what we see influences what we do. All that remains is that we use our power on behalf of the people in the ACT and throughout Australia - whose support we have - to ban X-rated videos and computer generated pornography. I commend this Bill to the Assembly.
Mr Collaery: Mr Speaker, I take a point of order at this stage under standing order 136. The grounds are substantially the same as those I have made earlier in relation to another Bill introduced by Mr Stevenson, and that is that within the proscribed time period Mr Stevenson has introduced a Bill which, in effect, is substantially the same as that which has already been resolved by virtue of a vote in this Assembly. On my submission and on the advice of my Law Office, Mr Stevenson has included in the definition of film, in the extant Publications Control Act, computer generated visual images. He has simply made a definitional change without altering the type of legislative structure he proposes to set up to ban the product.
Mr Speaker, on my advice an X-rated video also falls within the definition of a film as an X-film; therefore substantially the same subject matter is being covered as in the previous Bill. On its appearance the Bill is much the same, as all that Mr Stevenson has done is to describe a form of publication - that is, a facsimile or computer generated visual image which, in any event, falls within the existing definition in the principal Act. In other
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .