Page 1314 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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Ms Follett: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not wish to prolong this needlessly, but I thought that under the standing orders leave was granted or it was not and that the question of timing was a separate issue.
MR SPEAKER: That is a valid consideration, and I will just put the question once again. Is leave granted?
Leave granted.
MR STEVENSON: The X-rated video industry, although most obvious in the Australian Capital Territory, is a problem which confronts all Australians. Whether we realise it or not, the effects of pornography and crime can touch any individual at any time.
I intend to show that vast profits are made from pornography, that its huge cash flow is highly attractive to organised crime figures, and that there is an interlinking web of companies and identities throughout Australia that are strongly connected to organised crime, particularly in the areas of drugs, prostitution and pornography.
I intend to show that the X-rated video pornography industry is strongly linked with drugs, violence, fraud and corruption and that criminals have been protected and have been allowed to prosper because we have maintained the Australian Capital Territory as a safe house from which they can thumb their noses at the State laws which make their activities illegal. I intend to show that much of the impetus for the pornography industry in Australia has come from leading Mafia figures in the United States and that, further, there is a direct connection between the video trade in the ACT and organised crime in the United States.
The question that remains unanswered for many people throughout Australia is: Why have X-rated pornographic videos not been banned in the ACT when they are illegal in every single one of the States in Australia? It is a question that, I believe, will not be asked for very much longer.
I want to now describe the US organised crime connection. Though I have a great deal of information available, I have tried to be brief in giving a summary of the major porn dealers in the United States and Australia and the criminal activities and associations of both.
The first version of the pirate video market in Australia began in the 1970s with legal Betamax copies of porn videos being purchased in the US, sent to Australia and subsequently copied illegally and sold furtively in limited quantities throughout Australia.
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