Page 3443 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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The Commonwealth Government has not initiated a review of the operation of section 85S of the Crimes Act 1914, which could deal with the mail activities of these video outlets. Last year I referred some of the offensive mail material to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. I was advised by my office that a similar complaint had been made two years ago but remained unanswered, except for a courtesy acknowledgment. I was pleased that Ms Maher detailed the effective work the ACT Law Office did in challenging the censor and getting that disgusting record cover reclassified.
We have not succeeded in getting the DPP to take on the T-shirt. In their view, a T-shirt is not a publication because it is not on paper. I do not accept that advice, but I am not in a position to heavy the DPP - nor should any Attorney be.
Mr Berry: You bailed out.
MR COLLAERY: I will always bail out from heavying a DPP. If I do not want to follow Rex Jackson, I will continue to adopt that standard when I am next in government after February. Ms Maher mentioned my attempts at the censorship Ministers conference last year to get the other Ministers to recognise their hypocrisy. It was funny the way they all looked around the room when I made these points. The flick letters those Ministers sent saying, "It is up to my colleague in the Territory, Bernard Collaery. See him; he will ban it and save the nation", were very interesting.
I believe that we should call for the removal of the X-rated classification at the national level by the Commonwealth and the refusal of classification for any consenting sexually explicit material. We could modify the X-rated classification, and that is what I sought of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Chief Censor could simply modify the X-rated classification to get rid of a large measure of that material which I believe properly offends current standards in the community. We need a more vigorous intervention by the Commonwealth to regulate mail-order activities, and we should ask the States to relook at their situation.
Finally, members may note - the public may not be aware of this - that the convention was changed today to mean that private members could not bring their Bills on first in this chamber. One of the Bills I propose to bring in in October is a Residents Rally Bill which I believe will take the debate from Mr Stevenson. That Bill will seek to amend the Crimes Act as it applies in the Territory. It will create an aid and abet offence for those who breach the laws of other States from this Territory. That will effectively put the acid back onto each State Attorney to supply the information to our Australian Federal Police - and I stress that - who then may prosecute under the proposed amendment, which I hoped to move before this debate commenced.
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