Page 3440 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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also, and I think this will be covered by the former Attorney, Mr Collaery, be liaising very strongly with the police and the governments in other States to ensure that this insidious material, which no-one wants or appreciates, is banned.
MR COLLAERY (11.57): I agree with Mr Duby that the waterhole is poisoned. I think the figure given to me was 30 million articles already circulating. I hope the house will bear with me while I do an overview and explain how I am going to vote on this matter. X-rated videos are legally available in the ACT and the Northern Territory. The ACT inherited the industry and the system of laws applicable to the industry from the Commonwealth in May 1989. Since then we have become the focus of complaints - some of them well-founded - that the X-rated industry is emanating from Canberra.
The Commonwealth has reserved to itself the power to classify materials for the purpose of censorship. The ACT, on the other hand, is limited to laws which control the sale and distribution of those publications. The wording in the ACT (Self-Government) Act is currently the subject of a challenge from the video industry. I believe that the matter is coming up in the High Court in October, or thereabouts.
On that point, my view has been coloured from the outset in relation to Mr Stevenson's Bill. In May 1990 I received constitutional legal advice that, though the challenge to be mounted by AVIA, as it is known, would probably fail, my legal advisers had detected constitutional grounds and others whereby, were the industry to find out the argument, Mr Stevenson's Bill would be invalid and ultra vires.
I have been carrying that advice with me for some considerable time. I have no intention of helping the video industry by detailing that advice. The fact of the matter is that I do not believe, on the advice available to me at that time, that Mr Stevenson's Bill will survive a rigorous challenge in the High Court. From May 1990 I set about doing what I could, as a normal citizen and as the Attorney at that time, to do something concrete about a problem which ultimately Mr Stevenson cannot solve.
To come back to my overview, I accept that the content of some X-rated videos is contrary to accepted community standards. I regard group sex scenes as contrary to our accepted standards. I regard hostile scenes demeaning to women in sexual poses as contrary to accepted community standards. I sent a Law Office officer out to buy two of these videos from our petty cash, and I watched those videos upstairs. I think other members borrowed them from me, but I will give no further details!
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